Dr. Nick West is the Chief Medical Officer and Divisional Vice President of Global Medical Affairs of Abbott’s vascular business, a global medical device company developing life-changing technologies to reduce the burden of cardiovascular disease and improve patients’ lives. He graduated in medicine from Trinity Hall, University of Cambridge and St. Thomas’ Hospital Medical School, London, and trained in interventional cardiology at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford and Green Lane Hospital, Auckland, New Zealand. His postgraduate research in vascular biology, undertaken in the Department of Cardiovascular Medicine, University of Oxford and at Duke University, led to the award of the Sir Lionel Whitby Medal and the Sir Walter Langdon-Brown Prize at the University of Cambridge. Until 2019 he was a practicing interventional cardiologist at the Royal Papworth Hospital, Cambridge, UK; he published over 120 peer-reviewed papers & book chapters on topics including coronary physiology, intracoronary imaging/vulnerable plaque detection and more.
A better coronary artery stent cannot help a patient who cannot afford it, does not know they need it, doesn’t have a doctor who can make a diagnosis and identify that need. To help these patients, we urgently need to look at health equity.