Gretchen Wells Honored With a Mentoring Award From the American Heart Association

Gretchen Wells, a professor of medicine and the director of the Women’s Heart Program at the Gill Heart & Vascular Institute at the University of Kentucky, has been selected to receive the American Heart Association’s Council on Clinical Cardiology’s 2020 Women in Cardiology Mentoring Award. The award is designed to recognize individuals who have an outstanding record of effectively mentoring women cardiologists and underscores the importance of mentoring in the professional development of women.

“As any of us in academic medicine can attest, we are only where we are because of our mentors, and I am fortunate to have had such a strong group of men and women mentoring me throughout the years,” Dr. Wells said.

Dr. Well’s research focuses on finding new ways of detection and treatment to address the differences in heart disease in men versus women. She also focuses on treating women who are breast cancer survivors and develop heart problems from chemotherapy, and young women with pregnancy complications, like preeclampsia, who are at higher risk for heart disease later in life.

A native of Birmingham, Dr. Wells earned her medical degree and Ph.D. from the University of Alabama School of Medicine. She then went on to Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, where she completed a cardiovascular fellowship.