Michael J. Mack, MD, Becomes First Surgeon to Receive TCT Career Achievement Award

CRF presented the 2014 TCT Career Achievement Award to Michael J. Mack, MD, on Saturday, September 13, in recognition of his ongoing work in the field of cardiac surgery and his commitment to building a partnership between cardiac surgeons and interventional cardiologists in the treatment of cardiovascular diseases.

 Currently Chair of the Cardiovascular Governance Council at Baylor Scott & White Health in Texas, Mack is the first surgeon to receive the award.

“Mike Mack is a consummate professional who is extraordinarily deserving of the TCT Career Achievement Award on multiple levels,” said TCT Course Director Gregg W. Stone, MD, of Columbia University Medical Center.

Although it is notable that Mack is the first surgeon to receive the award, Stone said, one of the reasons he was chosen by CRF was to honor him for his role as an ambassador.

“One of his most impressive accomplishments has been bridging the divide between interventional cardiology and surgery,” Stone said. “Mike Mack is an incredibly gifted surgeon who applies evidence-based medicine to everything he does. He has been seminal in advancing cardiac surgery’s progress in the treatment of CAD and valvular heart disease. He also is compassionate, a gifted educator and speaker and a fierce debater. And through all of this he has maintained a wicked sense humor.”

Discovering interventional cardiology at TCT 

Mack earned his medical degree from St. Louis University in 1973. He then became board certified in internal medicine and then trained in general surgery and cardiac surgery.

“At the time, there was no specialty of interventional cardiology,” Mack said. “Life is about timing, and I have often wondered whether my career choice might have been different if it had been 5 years later and interventional cardiology existed.”

Mack has practiced cardiothoracic surgery in Dallas for his entire career. He was a founding member of Cardiothoracic Surgery Associates of North Texas and cofounded the not-for-profit Cardiopulmonary Research Science and Technology Institute in 1996. He served as President of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) in 2011 and currently serves on the Board of Trustees of the American College of Cardiology.

Other than in his own clinical practice, his path did not cross that of the interventional cardiology community until 1998, when he was first invited to speak at TCT in Washington, DC. Before that invitation he had never even heard of the conference. Attending the meeting sparked an epiphany in many ways, Mack related.

“The major focus of this huge meeting was treating the same patients with interventional techniques that I was treating as a surgeon, and I didn’t even know it existed,” Mack said. “That was very eye-opening.”

Forging new bonds

Mack’s career began to more closely intersect with interventional cardiology when he was invited to serve on the Steering Committee of the SYNTAX trial, which compared PCI with CABG in patients with three-vessel or left main disease and required participation from both cardiac surgeons and interventional cardiologists.

“Being part of the leadership of that trial and closely working for 7 years with major interventionalists and cardiac surgeons in the field formed a close bond that remains today,” Mack said.

This connection grew through Mack’s participation in the PARTNER trial, which explored the safety and efficacy of TAVR with the Sapien device (Edwards Lifesciences).

“This trial required a close working relationship and formed deep bonds between four major interventionalists including Martin B. Leon, MD, and three other cardiac surgeons,” Mack explained. “It took the working relationship and camaraderie between cardiology and cardiac surgery to levels that it had not been at before.”

The relationship was further strengthened by the multidisciplinary effort of cardiologists, surgeons, industry, FDA and CMS to introduce the Sapien valve in the United States, he said.

Helping shape the future of cardiovascular care 

Aside from the honor of being elected to serve as president of the STS in 2011, Mack said that having the opportunity to help forge a relationship between two specialty groups that have not always seen eye to eye — cardiac surgery and interventional cardiology — is something he can look back on as one of the career accomplishments of which he is most proud.

Being the beneficiary of a close professional and personal relationship with then American College of Cardiology President David R. Holmes, Jr., MD, of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., allowed the two specialties to accomplish great things together, Mack related. Holmes himself won the TCT Career Achievement Award in 1995.

“The TCT Career Achievement Award has to also rank at the top — being recognized by a specialty of which I am not a member for having achieved something that the specialty considers significant is quite unexpected,” Mack said.

Looking to the future, Mack predicts he will eventually segue from surgery to health care administration.

Baylor Scott & White Health has given him and his cardiology colleagues (including David L. Brown, MD; Kevin R. Wheelan, MD; and Gregory J. Dehmer, MD) the go-ahead to redesign the way cardiology and cardiac surgery are integrated and services are delivered, he said.

“At the end of the day, a patient’s treatment should not be dictated by what specialist’s office they walk into first. There should be better integration of care by a multidisciplinary approach. Everyone should be on the same page about a patient’s treatment…. Our job is to figure out how to do this within the context of the dramatic changes happening within our national health care system,” Mack said. “It is a tremendous opportunity where I hope we can accomplish something meaningful and impactful in bettering patient care.”