‘The end of an era’: Influential cardiologist, dead at 88, made a lasting impact
Harry Lee Page Jr., MD, a veteran cardiologist who helped pioneer modern interventional techniques, died on August 11 after a long illness. He was 88 years old.
Page was a founding member of the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI) and former SCAI president. He also served in the U.S. Navy and was a pioneer in interventional cardiology, founding the cath lab at Saint Thomas Hospital in Nashville and performing the Mid-South region’s very first coronary angioplasty.
In the days since his passing, Page’s friends and colleagues have celebrated his accomplishments and honored his legacy. A tribute from the SCAI, for instance, includes insights into his impact on interventional cardiology as a whole.
“We are so fortunate to have had fearless luminaries such as Harry Page at the helm of our profession,” SCAI President Sunil V. Rao, MD, said in the statement. “Leaders like Harry who were bold enough to believe in innovative technologies are the reason we’re able to perform so many life-saving procedures today. We are grateful for his contributions to our specialty, and will carry his legacy forward.”
Harry Lee Page Jr., MD, performing the first coronary angiography in the Mid-South region in 1979. The photograph was taken by Rand Frederiksen and is a part of VUMC Through Time: A Photographic Archive. For more information: https://eblthroughtime.library.vanderbilt.edu/items/show/11753
Vanderbilt University shared its own tribute to Page’s long, impactful career. Page was a founding partner of the Page-Campbell Cardiology Group at Saint Thomas Hospital in 1970. The group later merged with the Vanderbilt Heart and Vascular Institute in 2006.
“It’s truly the end of an era,” W. Barton Campbell, MD, a professor of medicine at Vanderbilt who worked closely with Page for decades, said in a statement. “There has been a huge evolution in our field since 1970 when we really got underway. His passing is a bit of a milestone in the sense that he pioneered some of this.”
“In my career, I have encountered a number of great teachers, clinicians and physician-scientists—the whole range of academic phenotypes that we are all familiar with,” added André L. Churchwell, MD, vice chancellor for equity, diversity and inclusion and chief diversity officer at Vanderbilt. “Harry Page belonged to another phenotype. That rare and select group—clinicians who possess a deep well of innate creativity, unique humor and calculated risk taking.”
Michael has more than 18 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.