(Boston)—Alice K. Jacobs, MD, FACC, FAHA, MSCAI, professor of medicine at Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM), was awarded the James B. Herrick Award for Outstanding Achievement in Clinical Cardiology by the American Heart Association's (AHA) Council on Clinical Cardiology. This award honors a physician whose scientific achievements have contributed profoundly to the advancement and practice of clinical cardiology.
Jacobs is Vice Chair for Clinical Affairs in the department of medicine at Boston Medical Center, where she served as the director of the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratories and Interventional Cardiology for 20 years until 2011.
Her work as the leader of AHA’s Mission: Lifeline, a community-based, national initiative to develop systems of care for ST-segment elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) patients and to increase the number of patients with timely access to primary percutaneous coronary intervention has led to saving thousands of lives. Mission: Lifeline has now expanded to include out-of-hospital cardiac arrest and stroke systems of care.
Jacobs served as president of the AHA in 2004-05 and president of the Association of University Cardiologists in 2011. She is a past chair of the American College of Cardiology/AHA Task Force on Practice Guidelines. During her tenure, the guidelines process and methodology evolved to include formal systematic evidence reviews, inclusion of patient representatives and lay members in the process, incorporation of an Evidence Grading Tool, and further enhancements to the Class of Recommendation/Level of Evidence schema.
Jacobs is a prior member of CMS Medicare Evidence Development & Coverage Advisory Committee and the Institute of Medicine Committee on Social Security Cardiovascular Disability. Currently, she is the immediate past-chair of the AHA Get With the Guidelines Coronary Artery Disease Advisory Working Group and Chair of the AHA Healthcare Certification Science Committee; a member of National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Cardiothoracic Surgical Network Protocol Review Committee and a member of the New York State Cardiac Advisory Committee. Her major research interest is in coronary revascularization strategies and the sex-based differences in ischemic heart disease. She has published more than 300 papers.
Jacobs’ accomplishments and contributions have been recognized with the AHA National Gold Heart Award and Distinguished Leadership Award, the Founder’s Affiliate Eugene Drake Award and the Greater Boston Division’s Paul Dudley White Award; Society of Cardiovascular Patient Care’s Ray Bahr Award of Excellence; Lumen Achievement Award in Interventional STEMI Care; the Kenneth B. Schwartz Center’s Compassionate Caregiver Award; and the Society of Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions Women Luminaries in Interventional Cardiology Award.
The Herrick Award is conferred annually during the Council on Clinical Cardiology Annual Dinner and Business Meeting during the Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association. In establishing this honor, the CCC pays homage to this great clinician, as well as to those who have emulated him in advancing the field of cardiology.