"In 1963 Sid Smith graduated as a fledgling chemical engineer. He had only one problem — his next dream was to practice medicine. So, he opted to pursue the Hippocratic Oath, and the young honors student, also an all-star high school football player, used his chemical engineering (ChE) degree from Virginia Tech as a stepping stone to attend Yale Medical School.
Today, he makes each of his alma maters proud as a former (1995) President of the American Heart Association (AHA) and the first person to hold the title of AHA's Chief Science Officer (2001-03). He's met in the Oval Office with two sitting Presidents of the United States on health matters, on such topics as the standards of cardiac care and the funding of prescription drugs for the Medicare population.
Virginia Tech's College of Engineering will recognize Dr. Smith's many accomplishments when it honors him as its Distinguished Alumnus at the May 12 graduation ceremony.
"Dr. Smith is extremely prominent in world health matters, now serving as chair of the Science Advisory Board and member of the Executive Committee of the World Heart Federation (WHF). Under his leadership, WHF has drafted guidelines, based on a mix of cultural norms and scientific evidence, to reduce risk of heart disease and stroke, with strategies varying drastically from countries such as Ethiopia to China to the U.S.A.," said Richard Benson, dean of the engineering college. "Dr. Smith is a true source of inspiration for young engineering graduates. He is a great engineer and a great physician. He uses his technical capabilities to bridge the two disciplines as he helps to determine how the various aspects of medicine can be used worldwide."
Dr. Smith's medical career started with the U.S. Navy where he spent two years as a cardiologist at the U.S. Naval Hospital in Norfolk, Va. In 1973 he moved to Denver to direct the University of Colorado's Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory. Among his initiatives, he established cardiac clinics in rural areas of Colorado.
He relocated to San Diego in 1977 to head the Department of Cardiology at Sharp Memorial Hospital. He also directed the San Diego Cardiac Center that grew into one of the three busiest cardiac centers in the state, and it performed the first heart transplant in San Diego in 1988. In 1994 Dr. Smith was recruited to the position of Chief of the Cardiology Division at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 2001 he became the Chief Science Officer for the AHA. In 2003 he returned to a full time role at UNC to serve as director of the Center for Cardiovascular Science and Medicine.
In 2006 he served as co-chair of the World Congress of Cardiology Scientific Sessions in Barcelona, Spain, attended by more than 33,000 from 135 countries was honored by having dinner with the Queen of Spain. He was also elected chairman of the Scientific Advisory Board for the World Heart Association which coordinates the activities of all 195 societies and foundations of cardiology worldwide. He currently serves as co-PI on a national guideline project in China involving 63 hospitals. Also in 2006, he began a three year appointment as chair of the ACC/AHA Task Force on Practice Guidelines which oversees the writing of the 17 ACC/AHA Guidelines on Cardiovascular Disease - now used in the development of performance measures by which hospital systems and physicians are evaluated.
Dr. Smith was a member of the AHA's national board of directors from 1991 to 1997. He served on the AHA's Science Advisory and Coordinating Committee and chaired the International Program Committee and the Clinical Science Committee. He was Vice President of the Inter-American Society of Cardiology and is a primary author of The Principles for National and Regional Guidelines on Cardiovascular Disease Prevention and more than 200 scientific articles and book chapters.
In June of 2000, he was awarded the AHA's prestigious Gold Heart Award. In 2003, he received an Award of Special Recognition from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute. At Virginia Tech, he is a member of the Committee of 100, and a past member of the ChE and the College-wide Advisory Boards. In 1996, he accepted an adjunct professorship with Virginia Tech's ChE Department."
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