Hello, this is Roxana Mehran. I'm an interventional cardiologist at Mount Sinai Hospital and Professor of Medicine, Cardiology, and Population Health Sciences and Policy at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.

Q:As ACC President, what are your overarching strategic priorities for the College during your tenure?

I’m extremely humbled to have been elected as the next President of the American College of Cardiology. In this role, I am deeply committed to the College's mission—a pure and simple mission—of transforming cardiovascular care for all. And when we say *for all*, we mean every human being on this earth: no matter where you are, where you live, what color you are, or what race or gender you identify with—you are included in our mission. Everyone counts: men, women, and all.

This is a very important and bold mission because it encompasses everything we need to do to transform cardiovascular care—the number one killer of men and women across the globe. We have made important progress over the past four decades, but the decline in cardiovascular morbidity and mortality has slowed. In fact, new statistics are alarming: younger men and women are dying more frequently of heart disease. This is deeply concerning, especially as we see maternal mortality rising. Every time I see the loss of a woman, I think of the family behind her—the loss of a mother, a matriarch, a caretaker.

We must open our eyes and ears to collaborate across borders, societies, foundations, public and private sectors, and governments to tackle this head-on. The American College of Cardiology is committed to this, and as its next President, I will devote myself entirely to moving this mission forward.


Q:Where do you see the most urgent unmet needs in cardiovascular medicine today, and how is the ACC responding?

One of the most urgent unmet needs is addressing ischemic heart disease—the leading cause of cardiovascular morbidity and mortality. The major contributors are hypertension, abnormal rhythms like atrial fibrillation, obesity, diabetes, and lipid disorders. These are risk factors we know well, but there are also genetic profiles and phenotypes we don’t yet fully understand.

We are at a crucial moment in time. Artificial intelligence is advancing rapidly, digital technologies are expanding, and innovation is happening daily. Combining these tools will allow us to diagnose diseases earlier, prevent them sooner, and bring innovative solutions to patients once thought unsalvageable.

We must move the needle—starting with what I consider the lowest-hanging fruit: hypertension. We need to ensure access to hypertension care for everyone, not only for those who can afford it. Every community, including rural and low- to middle-income countries, must be able to diagnose and treat hypertension and heart disease effectively.

Childhood obesity is at an all-time high in the United States. If we don’t address this, if we don’t change our diets and eliminate highly processed foods—if we don’t start treating food as medicine—we will fail to progress. The environment is another critical and neglected factor. Environmental issues and global warming have demonstrable impacts on cardiovascular health, and we must address them with urgency.

There’s much to be done, but we are ready. The goal is to tackle these challenges strategically—focusing our energy where it can have the greatest impact.

Q:How is the ACC evolving its approach to scientific education and knowledge dissemination in an increasingly digital landscape?

The digital landscape before us is not an obstacle; it’s a catalyst. Digital innovation helps us deliver information to clinicians more efficiently and in accessible ways. This accelerates learning and adoption at the bedside.

Education is central to the ACC’s strategic mission—through scientific sessions, meetings, and digital resources, we ensure that clinicians worldwide have access to the latest science and tools to implement best practices. If you come to the Scientific Sessions and then explore all the meetings and educational tools available to our members and to everyone through our website, you will see very clearly that education is at the core of our strategic pillars: how we disseminate information, how we learn, how we apply knowledge, and how we implement science.

I believe the digital technologies and digital landscape in front of us are fantastic catalysts to get information to all clinicians and healthcare providers earlier, more efficiently, and in formats that fit their attention span so they can truly learn from it and apply it at the bedside.

Q: Diversity, equity and inclusion remain critical issues across cardiology — what is the ACC doing to drive meaningful progress in this space?

We must think of *all* our patients—with a capital A. That includes the less fortunate, the vulnerable, those with low socioeconomic status, limited education, and those in poverty or in regions with limited healthcare access. We are steadfast in serving them.

We also aim to see a more diverse workforce that helps us understand and tackle these challenges together. Diversity matters—it makes us better. It feeds our mission of *all* with capital letters and is absolutely the way forward.

If we ignore vulnerable patients and do not pay attention to them, we will miss the boat and continue with the insanity of doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. For decades, ischemic heart disease has remained the leading cause of death from cardiovascular disease. This has to end, and we can do it one risk factor at a time by applying what we know to every patient.


Q: How do you see the relationship between clinical practice, research and industry evolving, and what role should the ACC play in shaping that dynamic?

We all know that many of our clinical trials, a majority of them, are funded by our industry colleagues. They too share the mission of promoting cardiovascular health with their technologies, novel therapeutics, and devices, and we should respect that.

But it is also essential to ensure that the integrity and level of evidence remain rigorous, and that we never take shortcuts—especially when designing clinical trials and enrolling patients in experimental therapies. Trials must be designed to answer questions definitively, whether positive or negative, with robust endpoints and the highest level of integrity.

This does not mean we cannot work closely with industry. In fact, public–private partnership is exactly how we can drive the change we need. Our industry sponsors are incredibly important in fueling the engine that allows us to tackle heart disease in men and women across the globe. The ACC has a critical role in setting standards, safeguarding scientific rigor, and fostering collaborations that are transparent, ethical, and focused on patient benefit.

Q:What does global leadership in cardiovascular care look like to you, and how is the ACC engaging with the international community?

One of the strategic pillars for the ACC in achieving its goal of transforming cardiovascular care for all is global representation. The ACC is a global organization with over 48 chapters outside of the United States and more than 20,000 international members across the cardiovascular team. We are very proud of this global footprint.

We work closely with societies across the globe, understanding cultural and regional differences, governmental structures, and models of care delivery. There are many things done better outside the United States and many things done very well within the U.S., and this dialogue helps us collaborate, partner, and focus on what is truly needed to reach our mission.

Our education is disseminated globally through ACC Latin America, ACC Middle East, ACC Asia, and other initiatives. Using digital technologies and now embracing AI, we are working to understand what clinicians and healthcare providers need at the bedside to deliver guideline-directed medical therapy swiftly and in the best possible way for their patients.


Q: Looking ahead, what do you hope will be the defining legacy of your presidency for the College and for patients?

It is really hard to know what one can achieve in the very short period of a one-year presidency, but I hope to achieve true collaboration and unification—among societies, foundations, federations, and global partners—to tackle this major issue so that we can all achieve our goals as cardiovascular professionals.

All of us train for many years to become cardiologists. It would be a shame if our efforts were wasted while cardiovascular morbidity and mortality rise, the decline slows, and more young men and women are dying. We must stop this.

My hope is to be one of the uniters—to bring everyone together to think about this on a much larger scale of complete collaboration and partnership. I know that at the very least, I can plant the seed, continue to water it, and hope that it will grow into sustained, global progress in cardiovascular health for all.