Patrick T. O'Gara, MD, is the Director of Strategic Planning for the Cardiovascular Division at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the Watkins Family Distinguished Chair in Cardiology and Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School. His clinical activities are focused on patients with valvular heart disease, other structural heart diseases and aortic diseases, although he also maintains a large practice of general cardiology. Since 2001, he has been named annually among the Top Doctors in Boston and the U.S.
O'Gara served as President of the American College of Cardiology (ACC) in 2014-15. Additional ACC leadership positions include his roles as Co-Chair of the ACC 2012 Scientific Session program committee, co-directorship of the ACC Board Review Course for Certification and Recertification, and Editor-in-Chief of the ACC Self-Assessment Program (ACCSAP). He served as Chair of the American Heart Association's (AHA's) Council on Clinical Cardiology from 2003-2005 and as the inaugural Editor of Heart Insight magazine from 2006 to 2011. In 2011, he received the Paul Dudley White Award from the Boston Division of the AHA Founder's Affiliate and has also been recognized with the Laennec Master Clinician Award (2011) and the Laennec Clinician Educator Award (2012). O'Gara was Chair of the writing committee for the 2013 ACC/AHA Guideline for the Management of Patients with ST-Elevation MI and has participated in several other guideline, expert consensus, scientific advisory and appropriate use criteria writing groups.
He is currently the Vice-Chair for the AHA/ACC Task Force on Clinical Practice Guidelines. He is also the Steering Committee Co-Chair of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute's Cardiothoracic Surgery Network, which has completed 3 groundbreaking, randomized controlled trials in cardiac surgery. O’Gara serves as Associate Editor for JAMA Cardiology and is a member of the Editorial Boards of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology and Circulation. He has lectured widely and authored or co-authored over 250 original manuscripts, chapters, critical reviews, statements and editorials.
