Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, one of the world’s most prominent cardiologists, has been honored in his hometown of Barcelona, Spain, with the Gold Medal for Scientific Merit.
Fuster, the current president of Mount Sinai Heart and physician-in-chief of The Mount Sinai Hospital, received the honor in Barcelona on Jan. 23.
“This is very emotional for me, as Barcelona is the city that I was born in,” Fuster said in a prepared statement. “It is a great honor to be considered for my research in cardiovascular disease and in promoting health for people of all ages, both in Spain and across the world.”
Fuster is also the general director of the Spanish National Center for Cardiovascular Research and editor-in-chief of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology. He has won many awards over the course of his celebrated career, including the American Heart Association’s Gold Medal and Research Achievement Award, American College of Cardiology’s Living Legend and Lie Achievement Award, European Society of Cardiology’s Gold Medal and Inter-American Society of Cardiology’s Research Achievement Award. At TCT 2022, the annual Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics (TCT) conference, he received the TCT Career Achievement Award.
The Barcelona City Council chooses a small number of recipients each year for this award. Barcelona’s mayor, Ada Colau, gave Fuster the award at the Barcelona Town Hall. Montserrat Aguadé, PhD, a genetics specialist with the University of Barcelona, and Teresa San Román, a renowned anthropologist of the Roma people, also received the Gold Medal for Scientific Merit during the same ceremony.
“Valentin Fuster has been the world’s leading cardiologist for decades, and as hyperbolic as that may seem, it is the reality,” Kenneth L. Davis, MD, CEO of Mount Sinai Health System, said in a statement in October 2022 when Fuster was first named president of Mount Sinai Heart.
“In my opinion, Valentin Fuster is the greatest cardiologist in the world,” Dennis S. Charney, MD, dean of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, said in the same statement. “His accomplishments are legendary in every domain of cardiology. He is irreplaceable.”
Michael has more than 16 years of experience as a professional writer and editor. He has written at length about cardiology, radiology, artificial intelligence and other key healthcare topics.