Valentin Fuster - Life and Career

Life and Career

Dr. Fuster serves as Physician-in-Chief, as well as Director of Mount Sinai Heart, The Zena and Michael A. Wiener Cardiovascular Institute and the Marie-Josee and Henry R. Kravis Center for Cardiovascular Health. He is also the Richard Gorlin, MD/Heart Research Foundation Professor, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. Dr. Fuster was the President of Science and is now the General Director of the Centro Nacional de Investigaciones Cardiovasculares Carlos III (CNIC) in Madrid, (Spain).

Among the seemingly countless positions of distinction that he holds are Past President of the American Heart Association, Past President of the World Heart Federation, Member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences where he serves as Chair of the committee on Preventing the Global Epidemic of Cardiovascular Disease, former member of the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute Advisory Council, and former Chairman of the Fellowship Training Directors Program of the American College of Cardiology. Thirty distinguished universities throughout the world have granted him Honorary Doctorate Degrees.

Fuster was born in Barcelona, (Spain) after the end of the Spanish Civil War. His early aptitude for tennis let him to compete at a national level, and it was through tennis that he met his future mentor – Pedro Farreras, the author of the standard Spanish textbook of medicine. After Farreras suffered a heart attack at age 45, he encouraged Fuster to study cardiology. Fuster pursued his degree at the University of Barcelona, graduating first in his class. His PhD (on the role of platelets in myocardial infarction) was completed at Edinburgh University.

After receiving his medical degree from the University of Barcelona and completing an internship at Hospital Clinic in Barcelona, Dr. Fuster spent several years at the Mayo Clinic, first as a resident and later as Professor of Medicine and Consultant in Cardiology. In 1981, he came to Mount Sinai School of Medicine as head of Cardiology. From 1991 to 1994, he was Mallinckrodt Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School and Chief of Cardiology at the Massachusetts General Hospital. He returned to Mount Sinai in 1994 as Director of the Zena and Michael A. Wiener Cardiovascular Institute and in 2006, he was named the Director of Mount Sinai Heart.

In his down time, Dr. Fuster is an avid cyclist - he has tackled the stages of the Tour de France and the Giro D'Italia, two of the most grueling road races in the world. He has ridden the Col du Tourmalet, a Tour de France climb on the highest mountain pass in the central Pyrenees, multiple times, as well as the Col d'Aubisque, another climb in the Pyrenees.