Dr. Robert C. Bourge

Robert C. Bourge, M.D. is Professor of Medicine, Radiology, and Surgery, M. G. Waters Chair of Cardiovascular Disease, Director, Division of Cardiovascular Disease, Co-Director, The Heart and Vascular Research Center, all at The University of Alabama at Birmingham. He is on the Editorial Board of The Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation.
 
Bob graduated with honors from Louisiana State University in 1975, with a baccalaureate in Zoology. He then earned his MD from Louisiana State University Medical Center in New Orleans in 1979 where he received the Chancellor’s award as the outstanding graduating medical student. He then completed a Residency in Internal Medicine, Fellowship in Cardiovascular Disease (serving as Chief Fellow in CV Disease from 1980 to 1982), and Fellowship in Nuclear Medicine at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) obtaining board certification in these three disciplines.
 
In 1984, Bob joined the faculty at UAB in the Division of Cardiovascular Disease as Director of the Clinical Cardiology Fellowship Program (1984–1989) and as Co-Director and then Director of Nuclear Cardiology (1984–1991). He served as Chief of Cardiology at the Birmingham Veteran’s Administration Medical Center from 1985 to 1988.
 
In 1987, he was appointed Head of the Section of Advanced Heart Failure and Heart Transplantation in the Division of Cardiovascular Disease. He subsequently established clinical and clinical research programs in advanced heart failure evaluation and therapy and pulmonary vascular diseases therapy. These clinical programs have grown to including all aspects of the evaluation, therapy, and research in patients with these often life threatening diseases.
 
In 1988, he collaborated with Colleagues in Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery at UAB in starting the first extensive, multi-disciplinary Ventricular Assist Device program in the Southeastern United States. In 1990, Bob became the founding medical director and president of the Cardiac Transplant Research Database (CTRD). The CTRD is a multi-center prospective compilation of the heart transplant experience of 45 of the larger heart transplant programs in North America with extensive data on over 12,000 heart transplant recipients.
 
Bob was appointed Director of the UAB Division of Cardiovascular Disease and Co-Director of the UAB Heart and Vascular Research Center in 1996. In November 2004, he was awarded the M.G. Waters Chair in Cardiovascular Disease at UAB. His primary interest is in outcomes-research in advanced heart failure, heart and heart/lung transplantation, and pulmonary vascular disease. His clinical focus involves the evaluation of patients with these diseases and the subsequent application of therapeutic approaches including general, medical, device-based and surgical methods to improve both quality of life and life expectancy.
 
Bob coauthored A Comparison of Continuous Intravenous Epoprostenol (Prostacyclin) with Conventional Therapy for Primary Pulmonary Hypertension, Intravenous Nesiritide, a Natriuretic Peptide, in the Treatment of Decompensated Congestive Heart Failure, Palliation of allograft vasculopathy with transluminal angioplasty, Neurological Events During Long-Term Mechanical Circulatory Support for Heart Failure, A Dose-Dependent Increase in Mortality with Vesnarinone among Patients with Severe Heart Failure, Infection in ventricular assist devices: prevention and treatment, and Efficacy and Safety of Treprostinil: An Epoprostenol Analog for Primary Pulmonary Hypertension.
 
Read Resolution Approving Appointment of Robert C. Bourge, M.D., as the Next Holder of the Mary Gertrude Waters Chair of Cardiovascular Medicine.