A Wayne State University School of Medicine and Wayne State University Physician Group professor and cardiologist will serve in key leadership roles of the American College of Cardiology for the next three years.

Kim Williams Sr., M.D., F.A.C.C., F.A.H.A., F.A.S.N.C., the Dorothy Susan Timmis professor and chair of the WSU Division of Cardiology, has been elected vice president of the ACC. His one-year term in that position begins March 2013. He then will serve as president-elect for 2014 and as president of the organization for 2015.

“It is my expectation that this will be a benefit to the Division of Cardiology for future recruitment and expansion, as well as align the focus of ACC efforts more along the lines of cardiovascular health care disparities,” said Dr. Williams, a resident of Detroit. “It is truly a high honor, opportunity and challenge to be entrusted to the leadership of this organization.”

The ACC is an international organization that represents more than 30,000 cardiovascular physician practitioners and several thousand allied health/cardiac care associates. The college promotes high quality cardiovascular care with registries for intervention and device therapies, disease treatment and procedure guidelines, position statements and appropriate use criteria for diagnostic studies and cardiac interventions. The ACC is committed to patient education through community outreach programs and CardioSmart http://cardiosmart.org/.

One of his goals while leading the organization, Dr. Williams said, is removing cardiovascular disease from its top slot as the leading cause of death among Americans, particularly among underserved populations.

“My longstanding cardiology career goal is to be ‘No. 2,’ and I am hoping that the resources of the ACC can help achieve this goal,” said Dr. Williams, who also serves as a professor of Medicine and of Radiology for the School of Medicine. “Cardiovascular disease has been the No. 1 killer of Americans since 1918, when it was supplanted by the Spanish Flu for that one year. We would like for this not to last a full century.”

Aligning the resources of the ACC toward the high incidence of cardiovascular mortality in underserved and under-recognized populations, such as inner-city minorities, rural populations, women with heart disease and the economically deprived, “will bring up the rear and help us make the largest strides we can toward improved cardiac survival,” he said.