Vera Bittner

Vera A. Bittner, Professor of Medicine and Section Head of General Cardiology, Prevention, and Imaging, has been on faculty at UAB since 1987. She currently serves as Quality Officer for UAB Hospital, is a member of the Provider Integration Network, and serves as Medical Director of the Coronary Care Unit and the Cardiopulmonary Rehabilitation Program. She has been listed in Best Doctors of America since 2009. Dr. Bittner’s research has focused on secondary prevention of cardiovascular disease with a focus on lipid-lowering therapies, cardiac rehabilitation, and heart disease in women. She has conducted federally funded and industry-funded clinical trials for over 25 years with leadership roles in several multi-center clinical trials. She has published more than 200 original research articles. Her research in cardiac rehabilitation was recognized with the 2014 Michael L. Pollock Established Investigator Award from the American Association of Cardiovascular and Pulmonary Rehabilitation (AACVPR) and she was named Master of AACVPR in 2017. An alumna of Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine, Dr. Bittner has served in leadership roles in national professional societies including as President of the National Lipid Association, Chair of the Section of Prevention of the American College of Cardiology, and Board Member for AACVPR. She sits on multiple editorial boards and serves as a Senior Guest editor for Circulation. Dr. Bittner directed the UAB Cardiology Fellowship Program for 13 years. She participated in the last two writing committees that define fellowship training requirements for cardiology fellows (COCATS) and served on the ABIM Cardiology Question Writing Committee. She has received the Department of Medicine Outstanding Teacher Award in the Division of Cardiovascular Disease in 2014, 2016, 2018. Dr. Bittner earned her medical degree from the South Alabama College of Medicine and her MSPH in Epidemiology from UAB. She completed her internal medicine training at Bowman Gray School of Medicine and her cardiology training at UAB. Vera Bittner, MD, MSPH, FACC, has been named the new editor-in-chief of ACCSAP, ACC's flagship self-assessment program covering the entire field of adult clinical cardiology. As the new editor, Bittner will lead the program's development by working with the editorial board and editors of comparable programs to create and maintain content development standards and ensure desired content objectives. Bittner is an academic cardiologist with more than 30 years of experience as a clinician, researcher, educator, mentor and administrator with a primary interest in cardiovascular disease prevention. She has been with the Division of Cardiovascular Disease at the University of Alabama at Birmingham since 1987, where she is currently a professor of medicine and head of general cardiology, prevention and imaging. Having a long history of leadership within the College, Bittner was most recently the ACCSAP Prevention Topic Editor and previously served as chair of the Prevention of Cardiovascular Disease Council and a member of the Scientific Session Program Committee, Guidelines Implementation Working Group and COCATS Task Force. "Dr. Bittner is an outstanding clinician-educator and dedicated academician," said Patrick T. O'Gara, MD, MACC, editor-in-chief of the Collaborative Maintenance Pathway programs and ACC past president. "Her vast experience will ensure the continued strength of the ACCSAP program for general cardiology for keeping cardiovascular disease clinicians up-to-date in our continuously evolving field."