Honorable Maestro Award

The Honorable Maestro Award is the Kentucky Chapter - American College of Cardiology's highest honor. The award recognizes achievements in the field of cardiology and medicine, leadership in the regional and national cardiology community, charity work, mentorship as well as vigilant care of the sick. The recipient is recognized on-stage at the Annual Meeting. Additionally, one of the national talks the following year will be named in their honor.

Honorable Maestro Recipients

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2022: David Booth, MD

Dr. David Booth has been with the UK Medical Center and the Lexington VA Medical Center since 1981. Dr. Booth’s background is in hemodynamics and cardiac catheterization. He gravitated to interventional cardiology when PTCA was new, doing his first procedure in early 1982. The majority of his distribution of effort is in clinical care and hands-on training of cardiology fellows in various clinical settings. He has been involved in randomized clinical trials since 1981, including VA Cooperative and NIH-sponsored studies such as the ACME Trial, the VA trial of bypass surgery in unstable angina, the BEST Trial, the COURAGE Trial, and the ISCHEMIA Trial. He began to care for patients with pulmonary hypertension in the early 1990’s. Dr. Booth was the recipient of the 2017 Boris Surawicz Award for Clinical Teaching, and the 2022 Michael Spain Award from the UK Gill Cardiology Fellowship, for service to the cardiology fellowship.

Honorable Maestro Recipients

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2021: Vidya Yalamanchi, MD

After completing medical school in India, Dr. Yalamanchi dreamed of coming to the United States to further advance his medical training. He completed his residency training in Chicago and always knew he wanted to become a Cardiologist, after having witnessed his brother in law suffer a myocardial infarction at a young age. Knowing that what partially contributed to his demise was that he did not have access to appropriate medical care or facilities, Dr. Yalamanchi had a personal mission to serve a community that was in need of cardiology services.

In his search he came across Hazard, KY, and at that time ARH was building a new hospital. The mountains reminded him of his hometown in India, and he was also excited about the care, potential services, and education that he could provide, to help a community that carries a high incidence rate of coronary artery disease. It was then that he decided to move to Hazard to help provide patients gain better access to medical care locally.

When he moved to Hazard in 1986, there was only a treadmill stress test available. However when he started his practice, they quickly began performing echocardiograms and nuclear stress tests. He was easily seeing 2-3 patients a day with myocardial infarctions and transferred them out several hours away for further cardiac care. He quickly learned there was a need for a cardiac cath lab in this small community.

After they started performing heart catheterization procedures, they got extremely busy and soon recognized the need for another cath lab. He was honored to donate the money to a community who had welcomed him, and with that they were able to start the second lab. Since then their cardiac services only continue to expand and they now offer cardiac surgery locally.
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2020: Susan Smyth, MD, PhD, FACC

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2019: Jesse Adams, MD, FACC

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2018: Roberto Bolli, MD, FAHA, FACC

University of Louisville cardiologist and researcher, Roberto Bolli, MD, FAHA, FACC, is director of U of L’s Institute of Molecular Cardiology and serves as scientific director of the Cardiovascular Innovation Institute at the university. He is also a professor and chief of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine at the School of Medicine. In the past year, he received one of the largest grants ever for medical research at the University of Louisville, to study a promising new type of adult cardiac stem cell that has the potential to treat heart failure. Dr. Bolli’s research focus has been on how to repair the heart and cure heart failure using a patient’s own stem cells. It is an approach that could revolutionize the treatment of heart disease.
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2017: JUAN VILLAFAÑE, MD, FACC

Juan Villafañe has practiced pediatric cardiology and cardiac electrophysiology in Kentucky since 1986 when he joined the University of Louisville to become the first pediatric cardiac electrophysiologist in the whole region. He is now a full time senior pediatric cardiologist practicing non-invasive cardiology and electrophysiology. He has a faculty appointment as Professor in Pediatrics at the University of Kentucky. Dr. Villafañe is board certified in Pediatrics and Pediatric Cardiology. He received his pediatric cardiology training at the University of Puerto Rico in 1981. In addition, he did a two-year fellowship at the University of Miami specializing in pediatric cardiology and cardiac electrophysiology.
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2016: DAVID MOLITERNO, MD, FACC

David Moliterno is a cardiologist in Lexington, Kentucky. He received his medical degree from Virginia Commonwealth University School of Medicine and has been in practice for more than 20 years.
  • 2015: Patrick Withrow, MD, FACC
  • 2014: Laman Gray, MD, FACC
  • 2013: Jamie Jacobs, MD, FACC
  • 2012: Morris Weiss, MD, FACC
  • 2011: Jacqueline Noonan, MD, FACC