Becomes the Medical Association’s Top Officer
Vera A. Bittner, MD, MSPH, was elected to serve as President of the National Lipid Association (NLA) at the NLA 2009 Annual Scientific Sessions held in Miami Beach, FL, April 30-May 3, 2009. Dr. Bittner is Professor of Medicine in the Division of Cardiovascular Disease, Department of Medicine, University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). She is section head of Preventive Cardiology, director of the Cardiovascular Disease Residency Program, and medical director of Cardiac Rehabilitation, UAB Hospital. She is a senior scientist at UAB’s Center for Health Promotion, Center for Aging, Clinical Nutrition Research Center, and Center for Outcomes and Effectiveness Research.
Dr. Bittner attended medical school at Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität Frankfurt, Fachbereich Medizin, and received an MD from the University of South Alabama College of Medicine. She completed her internship and residency in internal medicine at North Carolina Baptist Hospital, Bowman Gray School of Medicine, Winston-Salem, and a fellowship in cardiovascular disease at UAB. She also received an MSPH in epidemiology from the UAB School of Public Health.
Very active in international, national, and local organizations, including the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association, Dr. Bittner is on the Editorial Boards of the Journal of the American College of Cardiology, Circulation, the American Heart Journal, the Journal of Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation and Prevention, andthe Journal of Clinical Lipidology, among others.She is aDiplomate of the American Board of Clinical Lipidology.
Dr. Bittner has been a Board member of the NLA since 2005 and is a past president of the Southeast Lipid Association. She has conducted extensive research on a variety of cardiovascular topics and has published over 100 journal articles, dozens of reviews and book chapters, and more than 150 abstracts. She has made hundreds of international, national, and regional presentations.
Given her broad background in lipidology, cardiovascular disease and epidemiology, and in light of her extensive contributions to the medical literature and to physician education, the National Lipid Association is confident that Dr. Bittner will have a major role in developing the organization as its President and leading the group to accomplish its goals of preventing and treating cardiovascular disease. More details about the NLA are available at www.lipid.org.
Contacts:
National Lipid Association
Daniel Sosnoski, 904-309-6203
dsosnoski@lipid.org