ORLANDO, Nov. 4 — The American Heart Association presented one of its highest national honors to Darwin R. Labarthe, M.D., Ph.D., of Atlanta, “for four decades of exceptional achievement as one of the foremost mentors in the cardiovascular sciences.”
Labarthe received the Eugene Braunwald Academic Mentorship Award during the opening of the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2007 at Orlando’s Orange County Convention Center.
Daniel Jones, M.D., president of the American Heart Association, presented the award, including a citation and $1,000 honorarium.
Labarthe is director of the Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.
“Darwin Labarthe has instructed and inspired hundreds of students whose impact on public health has been profound,” Jones said. “He has devoted much of his professional life to mentoring young physicians and research fellows as they learned and applied concepts of epidemiology to the understanding and prevention of cardiovascular diseases. Two generations of trainees have been beneficiaries of his careful, caring oversight.”
Labarthe is a renowned epidemiologist and educator who has left “an indelible imprint” on population and clinical sciences during his 30 years of teaching at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston School of Public Health, and as founder and leader of the American Heart Association’s Ten-Day Seminar on the Epidemiology and Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease, Jones said.
Labarthe has directed the training of some 885 participants during the annual seminar’s 33-year existence. He joined the UT Houston School of Public Health faculty in 1970 and assumed his current post in Atlanta in 2000.