Henry Ford Hospital Names New Heart Disease Program Director

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DETROIT – William W. O’Neill, M.D., has been appointed medical director of the new Center for Structural Heart Disease at Henry Ford Hospital and will begin his new position on July 31.

Dr. O’Neill is an internationally recognized leader in interventional cardiology and research in new techniques to diagnose and treat heart disease. He pioneered the use of angioplasty for treatment of heart attacks, which is now the mainstay therapy throughout the world.  He has been working on new catheter-based treatments of structural heart disease, and performed the first aortic valve replacement through a catheter in the U.S. in 2005. 

“With Dr. William O’Neill’s appointment, Henry Ford Hospital and Medical Group will capitalize on its longstanding research expertise and team approach to develop a world-class Center for Structural Heart Disease.  He is the perfect choice to lead the way,” says John Popovich, Jr., MD, president and CEO, Henry Ford Hospital.

Dr. O’Neill has been a leader in academic and teaching hospitals for nearly 30 years. To date, he has authored more than 300 hundred peer-reviewed articles and abstracts published in medical literature, and edited one of the first textbooks in the field of interventional cardiologists.  He was a founding member of the American Board of Internal Medicine’s interventional cardiology board, which certifies all interventional cardiologists.

Dr. O’Neill has received multiple awards and recognitions in his career, including America’s Top Doctors; Transcatheter Cardiovascular Therapeutics Lifetime Achievement Award, and the Seymour Gordon Award for Distinguished Achievement, Michigan Chapter, American Heart Association. He was also the founding chair, Innovation in Intervention Summit, of the American College of Cardiology.

His previous positions include executive dean for Research, Research Training and Innovative Medicine, and CEO for Research at University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, corporate chief of Cardiology at William Beaumont Hospital, and director of the cardiac catheterization laboratory and associate professor of medicine at the University of Michigan Hospital.