Her contributions to education, research and clinical practice in the field of cardiology span more than 50 years. And now Nanette K. Wenger, MD, professor of medicine in the division of cardiology at the Emory University School of Medicine, has been honored with the 2014 Joseph Stokes Award from the American Society for Preventive Cardiology.
Dr. Wenger’s remarkable contributions were highlighted during the American Heart Association and American Stroke Association 2014 Scientific Sessions in San Francisco, California.
"2014 will likely be viewed as the year of prevention in clinical cardiovascular care, given the release of multiple guidelines addressing prevention of cardiovascular illness," explains Dr. Wenger. "This further will be enhanced by the preventive provisions of the Affordable Care Act."
Dr. Wenger graduated from Harvard Medical School and received her medical and cardiology training at Mount Sinai Hospital before coming to Emory University School of Medicine and Grady Memorial Hospital in 1958. Since then Dr.Wenger has been honored with dozens of prestigious awards throughout her career.
Dr. Wenger's greatest legacy is changing the face of cardiology. In 1993, the New York native coauthored a landmark article in the New England Journal of Medicine that aggressively debunked the common belief that heart disease was a man's disease. Today, as a result of Dr. Wenger’s pioneering clinical and research efforts, cardiovascular disease is recognized as the number one killer of women in the United States causing 1 in 3 deaths each year. That’s approximately one woman every minute, a higher mortality for women than all forms of cancers combined.
Dr. Wenger helped write the 2011 Guidelines for Preventing Cardiovascular Disease in Women. In 2009, her fiftieth year at Emory, Dr. Wenger’s extraordinary career achievements were celebrated with the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American College of Cardiology.
Dr. Wenger serves on the editorial boards of numerous professional journals and is a sought after lecturer for issues related to heart disease in women, heart disease in the elderly, cardiac rehabilitation, coronary prevention and contemporary cardiac care. She is listed in Best Doctors in America.