A national leader in shaping cardiac rehabilitation

Anyone who has suffered a frightening heart-related event understands the importance of safely limiting the risk of developing more heart trouble, resuming life and improving wellbeing. This is the critical role of cardiac rehabilitation and a St. Joseph’s Health Care London (St. Joseph’s) physician is being honoured for his leading contributions in developing robust cardiac rehabilitation programming across the province.

Congratulations to cardiologist Dr. Neville Suskin, who is the 2024 recipient of the Terry Kavanagh Award and Lecture presented by the Canadian Association of Cardiovascular Prevention and Rehabilitation (CACPR). This annual lecture is one of the highlights of the CACPR spring conference, which took place in June 2024, and one of the most prestigious awards within CACPR. Recipients embody the spirit of Dr. Terry Kavanagh, a Canadian pioneer in the field of cardiovascular health, and have demonstrated outstanding leadership, significant contribution, and a prominent level of research with far reaching impact in the field of cardiovascular prevention and rehabilitation and/or chronic disease management.

Dr. Suskin is Medical Director of the Cardiac Rehabilitation and Secondary Prevention Program at St. Joseph’s, a Lawson Health Research Institute scientist, and a professor of Medicine, Epidemiology and Biostatistics at Western University. He is known for his outstanding leadership in creating and disseminating knowledge focused on cardiovascular chronic disease management, and for establishing pragmatic, evidence-based, cardiac rehabilitation (CR) systems. He led the 25-site Ontario cardiac rehabilitation pilot project, which demonstrated the effectiveness of province-wide, standardized deployment of CR interventions, using integrated data management systems with regular audit and feedback. The pilot project led to funding for the establishment of London Health Sciences Centre’s CR program – now St. Joseph’s CR program. Dr. Suskin co-conceived the guiding principles for the data management and audit system used in the pilot, which has evolved into the web-based system currently serving CR programs in Ontario and Quebec and that forms the platform for the national CACPR Registry.

Dr. Suskin’s expertise and leadership skills have been recognized by his peers nationally with his election as President of the CACPR (2006-2008), appointment as vice-chair (2010) and chair (2019) of the CR working group of the Canadian Cardiovascular Society’s Quality Project, his 2020 appointment to the editorial board of the Canadian Journal of Cardiology, and as specialist member on the Health Technology Expert Review Panel of the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (2021). In addition, Dr. Suskin has published more than 80 peer reviewed manuscripts, has been awarded more than $3.5 million in peer-reviewed salary and operating grant funding, and served multiple terms on the national scientific grant-in-aid and senior personnel awards committees of the Heart & Stroke Foundation of Canada.

Dr. Suskin’s lecture at the CACPR conference, titled “Cardiac rehab 2020-2024: metrics, politics & resilience", reviewed the efficacy and cost–effectiveness for CR through a Canadian lens, emphasizing the vital importance of integrating measurement with clinical care to ensure the delivery of life-saving CR programming.

St. Joseph’s is fortunate to have such a standout leader, clinician, researcher, educator, and mentor, who has played such a key role in the delivery and effectiveness of cardiac rehabilitation.