Career Progression: Monique L. Anderson, MD

Ahasessiondailynews.com – Monique L. Anderson, MD

After her father had a heart attack when she was a child, Monique Anderson knew she’d become a doctor. But it wasn’t until she was in medical school that she realized she also wanted to conduct research.

“For me, cardiology was the perfect field. I am able to see patients, implement health programs and conduct clinical research,” said Anderson, assistant professor of medicine and a cardiologist at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina.

Anderson credits her cardiology fellowship training at Duke with providing the clinical and research training and the mentorship she needed to succeed as an academic researcher. At Duke, she also completed the American Heart Association Pharmaceutical Roundtable Cardiovascular Outcomes Fellowship program, a two-year research training fellowship.

Anderson’s research interest in cardiac resuscitation began when she was a cardiology fellow after caring for a cardiac arrest patient who survived after 55 minutes of CPR outside an exercise facility.

“Her story was miraculous and stayed in the back of my mind as I started my research fellowship,” Anderson said. “I became drawn to cardiac arrest research by its poor survival, existing health disparities and the growing impact of community-based efforts to improve survival. Whether through AHA volunteerism or my academic career, I seek to conduct the best science to decrease death and disability from heart disease.”

Anderson’s work with the AHA began in 2011 when she joined the AHA Resuscitation Science Symposium Program Planning Committee. She was later selected to serve on the Emergency Cardiovascular Care Committee and Council on Cardiopulmonary, Critical Care, Perioperative and Resuscitation’s (3CPR) Leadership Council during her first faculty year. She’s also a member of the Early 3CPR Career Committee, the AHA Get With The Guidelines: Resuscitation Adult Research Task Force, and the AHA’s Communities and Care National Advisory Board, among other volunteer roles.

Volunteering for the AHA is a natural extension of her career as a physician and researcher.

“When I was in medical school at Harvard, I discovered I really liked the idea of building programs to serve people,” Anderson said. “I love collaborating and bringing groups together around an innovative idea. In medical school, I spent a year setting up a community education program in a church to promote lifestyle change. I still think building effective community-based prevention programs is critically important, but it is equally important to be able to critically examine and measure health outcomes.”

Anderson recently worked with the AHA to measure the outcomes and impact of its Check. Change. Control. community high blood pressure program.

And if her name sounds familiar, it may be because she was featured in the Daily News last year after performing CPR on a man at Scientific Sessions in Chicago. The man had collapsed in a hotel lobby when Anderson and a group of doctors came upon him. He was unresponsive, not breathing and had no pulse.

After Anderson administered a few rounds of chest compressions, the man sat up and said, “I’m OK, I’m OK.” After undergoing tests at a local hospital, he was doing well the next day.