Megan Coylewright, MD, MPH, FACC, has been named editor of the American College of Cardiology’s CardioSmart patient engagement initiative, which aims to support the patient and clinician partnership to personalize care. Coylewright will serve a three-year term.
“The role of editor of CardioSmart is an ideal blend of my daily clinical work performing transcatheter valve repair and replacement, research in shared decision making, and our community and nationally-based efforts to ensure we are using best practices in promoting diversity, inclusion and belonging in all that we do,” Coylewright said. “I am thrilled to work with the talented staff of CardioSmart. Together, we will partner with patients and the cardiovascular care team to further embed the patient voice in our daily practices, scholarship, guidelines and clinical trials.”
Through CardioSmart.org, patients and clinicians can find information about heart conditions, resources to support important health care conversations and tools to build their partnership—not just on specific decisions, but over a lifetime. CardioSmart is a direct reflection of the ACC’s Core Values: Patient-Centered, Teamwork and Collaboration, and Professionalism and Excellence. As editor, Coylewright will be responsible for advising and ensuring clinical accuracy of the editorial content development on CardioSmart.org, as well as assist in developing innovative strategies to help the ACC best engage, educate and activate the diversity of cardiovascular patients in their care.
Trained as a structural interventional cardiologist, Coylewright is the vice chief of cardiology faculty development and director of the Structural Heart Program at Erlanger Health System in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Coylewright focuses on minimally invasive treatment options for heart disease. She is also committed to creating partnerships between clinicians and patients using shared decision-making to ensure patients meaningfully participate in informed care decisions that are right for them. Coylewright champions efforts both locally and nationally to increase diversity and inclusion in interventional cardiology, as well as amongst patients enrolled in clinical trials.
Prior to her current role, Coylewright completed her medical school, residency and public health training at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. While there, she also served as the health disparities coordinator at the Baltimore City Public Health Department. She completed an additional five years of training in cardiology, interventional cardiology and structural heart interventions at Mayo Clinic.
Coylewright is a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology and was selected for the ACC Emerging Faculty Program in 2014. She has made many contributions to the ACC thus far, including leading the shared decision-making section of the Championing Care initiative for patients with severe aortic stenosis from 2012-2014; serving on the Annual Scientific Session Program Committee from 2019-2022; and co-authoring the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging section of the 2020 American Heart Association and American College of Cardiology Consensus Conference on Professionalism and Ethics report.