9^th Winner | Dr. Patrick W. Serruys

Dr. Patrick W. Serruys, a professor of Cardiology in the Cardiovascular Science Division at Imperial College in London (UK), has been selected as the recipient of the 9th TCTAP Award “Master of the Masters”. The award ceremony was held on Sunday, April 28, 2019.

TCTAP Award “Master of the Masters” has been bestowed annually upon the most distinguished cardiologist who has made meritorious contributions and has been playing a significant leading role in the field of interventional cardiology, as well as in TCTAP over the years.

Dr. Patrick W. Serruys studied medicine at the University of Leuven, Belgium. From the beginning of his career to being an expert in cardiology, he devoted a lot of time at the Thorax Center, Erasmus Medical Centre from 1977 to 2014. He was a Chief of Interventional Cardiology at the Thorax Center from 1997 to 2012, and a professor of Medicine until April 1st, 2014, at Erasmus Medical Centre, Netherlands. He once mentioned that if he writes an autobiography, the title would be “Thorax Center”.

There are many intellectual achievements of Dr. Patrick W. Serruys. In 1986, he introduced stenting in patients in the Netherlands. Then, he conducted the first randomized trial with stenting that led to the approval of the technique by the Food and Drug Administration in the USA. He regards this as the most important achievement of him. In 1999, he developed drug-eluting stents, which drastically reduced restenosis after procedures, with Dr. Eduardo Sousa. In 2006, he devised a fully biodegradable drug-eluting scaffold. It was a huge discovery since a permanent metallic stent would not need to be implanted in patients.

In addition to his numerous researches, he has brought notable professional results as well. He had (co-) authored more than 3375 ISI-recognized publications and also was an editor of 45 books and textbooks. Through all these outstanding work and contribution, he won the Gold Medal Award of the European Society of Cardiology in 2012, as well as the TCT Career Achievement Award in 1996.

As a great teacher and a mentor, Dr. Patrick W. Serruys has trained more than 250 interventional cardiologists. He has always emphasized the importance of being curious and opening to the novelty. He said, “If you see somewhere unexplored, you have to go there. That’s the place to work. That’s the place to discover new thing.”