UAB Professor and Director of the Division of Cardiovascular Disease Robert C. Bourge, MD, announces the recent appointment of Silvio E. Papapietro, MD, as assistant professor and director of the Chest Pain Center.

Dr. Papapietro joins UAB from private practice and from Carraway Methodist Medical Center, where he was medical director of cardiac catheterization and interventional cardiology laboratories for 17 years and medical director of the coronary care unit for 21 years. Dr. Papapietro also was a staff physician at Norwood Clinic in the Department of Cardiology for 21 years and on the faculty of the School of Medicine at UAB from 1978 to 1981.

Dr. Papapietro graduated from the University of Chile Medical School in Santiago, where he also completed a pharmacology fellowship. He completed his internship at the University of Massachusetts Memorial Hospital in Worcester, a residency at the UAB/Montgomery Internal Medicine Program and the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center in Oklahoma City, and a fellowship in cardiovascular disease at UAB. He is certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine, with subspecialties in cardiovascular disease and interventional cardiology.

In addition to numerous peer-reviewed publications, book chapters, abstracts, and presentations, Dr. Papapietro is an international lecturer and received the 1991 Robert M. Bryan Award for Excellence in Teaching at Carraway Methodist Medical Center. Additionally, he was listed in the 2002 edition of Best Doctors in America and the 2002 and 2003 editions of "Best Docs in Birmingham," by Birmingham Magazine.

Dr. Papapietro's clinical interests center on cardiac hemodynamics and percutaneous interventions in coronary and peripheral vascular disease, and his current research focuses on the treatment of ischemic heart disease.

He is currently accepting patients at The Kirklin Clinic®; call 934-7898 for patient appointments. He also can be reached via e-mail at spapapietro@uab.edu.