Laurence Sperling, MD, on How Million Hearts® Has Impacted His Outlook on Medicine
In this video, Million Hearts® Executive Director Laurence Sperling, MD, explains how the initiative has changed the way he thinks about medicine.
Additional Resources:
- Sperling L. About the Million Hearts® Initiative. Cardiology Consultant. 2020. Accessed September 22, 2020. https://www.consultant360.com/video/cardiology/about-million-heartsr-initiative
- Million Hearts®. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Accessed September 22, 2020. https://millionhearts.hhs.gov/
Laurence Sperling, MD, is the executive director of the Million Hearts® for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention/Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. He is also a Katz professor in preventive cardiology and a professor of global health at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.
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TRANSCRIPT:
My name is Dr Laurence Sperling. I’m the executive director of the Million Hearts® initiative. Also, I serve as the Katz professor in preventive cardiology and a professor in global health at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia.
Serving as the executive director of the Million Hearts® initiative has had a significant personal impact upon the way I think about medicine in general. I still care for patients as a professor at Emory School of Medicine. I am still humbled by the opportunity to do so.
What Million Hearts® has taught me is there’s a world out there, and that world has the capacity in our country by focusing me at the level of policy, focusing at the level of collaboration and partnership. This is where we all together can really think about the possibility of preventing 1 million heart attacks, strokes, and cardiovascular events.
Something very compelling for me is I’ve been in clinical practice now for 23 years. I don’t think I could ever work long enough or hard enough—despite my commitment to cardiovascular prevention—to serve in a position to help prevent 1 million cardiovascular events. This really is what touches my heart every day as I think about serving the Million Hearts® initiative.
