Ottawa heart institute names new top executive

Ottawa, ON – January 12, 2004 – The University of Ottawa Heart Institute board of directors has appointed Dr Robert Roberts as its new president and chief executive officer and successor to Dr Wilbert Keon.

“We are absolutely thrilled to have one of the world’s leading cardiologists taking the reins of Canada’s leading cardiac care center, the University of Ottawa Heart Institute,” says Gordon Ritchie, chairman of the board.

Dr Roberts has been responsible for a number of major advances in cardiac medicine. An international pioneer in genetics and molecular cardiology, he is the chief of cardiology at the Baylor College of Medicine. He graduated from medicine at Dalhousie University in Halifax, and completed his residency and fellowship training in Toronto. He is the co-author of several medical textbooks, chairs committees for the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology and is the chair of a special task force of the National Institutes of Health on developing guidelines around the bioethics of genetic testing and application of molecular genetics. Dr Roberts also serves on the editorial board of most American and international cardiovascular journals.

Dr Keon, who founded the Heart Institute in 1976 and retired as chief of surgery in 2001, will step down as president and chief executive officer April 1, 2004.