2020 Outstanding Alumna Award Winner
Janet S. Wright, MD, is director of the Division for Heart Disease and Stroke Prevention at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She most recently served as the acting director of Science and Policy in the Office of the Surgeon General, where she received the 2020 Surgeon General’s Award for Exemplary Service.
From 2011 to 2019, Dr. Wright served as the executive director of Million Hearts®, a national initiative co-led by the CDC and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, with the goal of preventing 1 million heart attacks and strokes in the U.S. over five years.
Dr. Wright was the senior vice president for Science and Quality at the American College of Cardiology from 2008 to 2011. Among her responsibilities was maintaining the National Cardiovascular Data Registry, a suite of cardiovascular databases containing millions of patient records from inpatient and outpatient care settings.
Dr. Wright practiced cardiology for more than 20 years in Chico, California, serving on ACC’s Board of Trustees and a number of quality and public health organizations.
Dr. Wright received her medical degree from the University of Tennessee Health Science Center in 1978. She completed a residency in internal medicine at Children’s Hospital and Adult Medical Center in San Francisco and a fellowship in cardiology at San Francisco General Hospital and the University of California, San Francisco.
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