2012 Heart Rhythm Society Recognition Awardees

Arthur has led and contributed to more than 360 peer-reviewed publications, including two in Nature, five in Nature Medicine and Nature Genetics, five in the New England Journal of Medicine, 35 in Circulation, 23 in Circulation Research and Cardiovascular Research, 30 in HeartRhythm, and many more publications in leading genetics and basic science journals.

Arthur and the Amsterdam cardiogenetic group have provided us with outstanding publications in every single field related to channelopathies, and these have had a great impact on our understanding of these diseases. In Brugada syndrome, for example, the Amsterdam group was the first to describe the overlap syndrome between long QT syndrome type 3 and Brugada syndrome due to sodium-channel mutations. They were the first to propose the "depolarization-defect theory" as an alternative explanation for the pathophysiology of this disease, while leading the large muticenter studies that radically changed our understanding of the natural history of this condition. In catecholaminergic polymorphic ventricular tachycardia (CPVT), Arthur and his colleagues were the first to describe the highly beneficial therapeutic effects of flecainide or left cardiac sympathetic devervation. In cardiogenetics, his group was the first to show that KCNQ1, a gene long known to cause long QT syndrome, is also a cause of congenital short QT syndrome, and the first to recognize a culprit gene responsible for the syndrome of idiopathic ventricular fibrillation (VF) with a normal electrocardiogram. They also enhanced our understanding of the familial and genetic factors involved in ischemic VF (i.e., the type of VF that occasionally complicates acute myocardial infarction) by showing that a familial history of sudden death is the strongest independent predictor of this complication of acute infarction. They substantiated this postulate with the first genome-wide association study that identified a region of chromosome 21q21 that portends succeptibility for this acquired arrhythmia.

Arthur was among the first to show how important it is for cardiologists and geneticians to join forces, demonstrating the importance of "cardiogenetic" analysis of victims of cardiac arrest and their relatives. This workup has all been implemented in the cardiogenetic out-patient counseling clinic in Amsterdam where cardiologists and clinical and molecular geneticists have seen thousands of patients in the past 15 years. The format of this clinic has been copied worldwide. He has led important Task Forces, including the First Consensus Report on Brugada Syndrome.

Submitted by Sami Viskin, MD

This is the mantra by which Dr. John M. Miller has practiced medicine throughout his career, and continues to impart it to all of his fellows every day.

Dr. Miller was born in Tulsa, Oklahoma in 1954. He excelled in his studies early on and graduated from Penn State College of Medicine with several academic awards. He did his Internal Medicine residency at North Carolina Memorial Hospital in Chapel Hill and his cardiology and electrophysiology fellowships at the University of Pennsylvania under the tutelage of Dr. Mark Josephson. He served as a faculty member at the same institution for six years and later became the Directory of Electrophysiology at Temple University School of Medicine. Dr. Douglas Zipes recruited him in 1998 as a Professor of Medicine and Director of Cardiac Electrophysiology at the Krannert Institute of Cardiology, Indiana University School of Medicine where he has continued to serve this role to date.

One of Dr. Miller's great strengths is his absolute enthusiasm and passion towards education. He has a keen sense and the ability to decipher a fellow's weakness when it comes to cardiology and electrophysiology, and explain difficult and complicated concepts in a manner that makes sense. As a former fellow, I had the privilege of being mentored by him. As the Chief Fellow, I was responsible for designing the educational curriculum for the house-staff. Dr. Miller was always available on a moment's notice to provide one of his many lectures without any hesitation or reservations despite his full schedule. His commitment to house-staff education is reflected by the fact that he has been chosen by the fellows to receive the Charles Fisch Cardiology Fellows Teaching Award at the Indiana University School of Medicine on numerous occasions.

He is very actively involved with several educational and writing committees with the Heart Rhythm Society and the American College of Cardiology. He currently serves as the Chairman for the American Board of Internal Medicine Test Committee for added qualification in Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology. He has authored numerous original publications, book chapters, and textbooks. He serves on the editorial boards of the HeartRhythm Journal and the Journal of Cardiovascular Electrophysiology.

He has lectured at numerous national meetings and various academic centers throughout the world and almost all would agree that the content of his lectures and his explanations of very difficult concepts such as ventricular entrainment principles are second to none. It is amazing that he finds the time with such a busy schedule to travel frequently to impart his knowledge to further our field. This clearly typifies his personality and absolute and unequivocal dedication to teaching.

Dr. Miller is a consummate professional who has by far been the most influential teacher in my life and to many of his fellows. He has served as a true mentor and a friend to us. His dedication to teaching and advancing our careers as young professionals in this rapidly growing field is unquestionable. He will represent the 2012 Heart Rhythm Society Distinguished Teacher Award very well and complement all the past awardees that have received this prestigious award.

Submitted by: Gopi Dandamudi, MD, FHRS

Anne B. Curtis, MD, FHRS

Dr. Anne Curtis joined NASPE in 1989. She rapidly immersed herself in enduring and substantive service to our Society. This effort began in 1993 as a member of the Fellowship Training Program Directors Committee. Over the ensuing 18 years, Anne has served on 45 committees and task forces. She has served with distinction on multiple committees each year as shown by the following that includes the year and the number, in parentheses, of committees/task forces served: 1996 (4), 1997 (5), 1998 (8), 1999 (11), 2000 (10), 2001 (11), 2002 (14), 2003 (7), 2004 (7), 2005 (7), 2006 (9), 2007 (9), 2008 (5), 2009 (3), 2010 (4), and 2011 (4). In particular, she made seminal contributions to the output of the Fellowship Training Program Directors Committee, the Annual Scientific Sessions Program Committee, the ICD/Biventricular Pacing Competency Task Force, and the Heart Rhythm Foundation.

Between 1998 and 2011, Anne served as chair or co-chair of 16 committees and task forces, including chairing up to five committees during the same year. Her leadership of the Continuing Medical Education and Health Policy Committees is particularly noteworthy because of the rapid and substantial changes that were occurring in the regulations that govern physician education and reimbursement. Anne ensured that the Society's policies in these critical areas were timely, comprehensive, and effectively communicated, including seven key publications that she co-authored.

Dr. Curtis serves the Society as an accomplished educator. In the past 10 years alone she has been an invited speaker and/or chair at 61 sessions of the Annual Scientific Meetings and at co-sponsored international scientific symposia. She has been a lecturer and organizer of 21 Society- sponsored Continuing Medical Education programs.

In view of her impressive direct service to HRS, it would be easy to overlook the derived benefit Dr. Curtis has brought to our organization through her activities with the FDA, the Medicare Coverage Advisory Committee, the ABIM, the Sarnoff Cardiovascular Endowment, the NIH, and committees serving national clinical trials. The HRS brand is so ingrained on Anne that she is a spokesperson for our Society each time she devotes effort to any organization.

Most importantly, Dr. Curtis joined the Board of Trustees in 1997. She was elected in 2002 to the Society's leadership track as Second Vice President. This five-year commitment culminated in her 2005-06 term as HRS President. Her presidency was defined, in part, by the Society's leadership in effective, multidisciplinary, swift, and beneficial responses to device recalls.

Anne has served our Society extraordinarily well in every area. Her commitment has been unusually broad, the impact of her service has been substantial, the duration of her service has spanned three decades, and her performance has been outstanding. She continues to serve HRS as Chair of the Women's Leadership Initiative.

We are grateful to Anne for her outstanding contributions and her devotion to the Society. She is most deserving of the 2012 Distinguished Service Award.

Submitted by: Michael E. Cain, MD, FHRS

Harry G. Mond, MD, FHRS, CCDS

Dr. Harry Mond was born in Melbourne, Australia and received his MBBS from the University of Melbourne in 1966. He trained in cardiology at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and completed his Doctorate of Medicine by thesis from the University of Melbourne under Dr. J. Graeme Sloman. A cardiology fellowship followed at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia under Professor J. Willis Hurst in 1975. He has continued to work at the Royal Melbourne Hospital and is an associate professor of medicine at both the University of Melbourne and Monash University. He is the first author of three books, numerous book chapters and over 250 published manuscripts. Dr. Mond joined NASPE (HRS) in 1982 in the first group of non-North American full members. He was also a founding member of the NASPExAM (IBHRE) exam writing committee in 1986 and is currently an associate editor of PACE. He is also a board member and medical director of Heartbeat International, an organization in Tampa, Florida, involved in distributing free pacemakers to indigent recipients in third world countries. Dr. Mond received the citizen's award of OAM (Medal of the Order of Australia) from the Australian government in 2010.

Dr. Mond commenced his interest in cardiac pacing in 1970. It was the dawn of the transvenous era with non stylet endocardial pacing leads having become available only a few years before. Initially Dr. Sloman and then Dr. Mond took on the formidable challenge of learning, or more accurately teaching themselves, to implant a transvenous endocardial pacing system. This was an era when all international communications were by correspondence. There were no pacemaker training courses and no meetings and only a handful of physicians in the world were experimenting with a transvenous pacemaker implantation.

With the development of stylet driven leads, Dr. Mond continued investigational work on lead development, including numerous studies on active and passive fixation and steroid elution. He implanted three of the first seven lithium powered pacemakers manufactured by Cardiac Pacemakers Incorporated in 1972. He also developed a classification for pacemaker malformation published as a single author book in 1983. Other interests included the first paper on ventricular pacing from the coronary venous system in 1994 and the development of the World Survey of Cardiac Pacing and ICDs. With the dawn of the 21st century, it became evident that right ventricular apical pacing may result in left ventricular dysfunction and once again Dr. Mond took on the pioneering challenge of developing the tools required for septal pacing. This resulted in the successful St Jude MondTM septal stylet.

Dr. Mond has been married to Evelynne for 42-years and they have three children and seven loving grandchildren.