Where the heart is
OU-COM alumnus helps bring cardiovascular care to southeast Ohio

By Corinne Colbert

Only 50 miles separate Athens from Lancaster, Ohio, or Parkersburg, W.Va. It's not that far if you want to spend a day shopping or try a new restaurant. When you're ill, though, it's a very long trip. And unfortunately, many southeast Ohio residents have to make that trip often for specialized medical care.

Soon, though O'Bleness Memorial Hospital will offer state-of-the-art cardiovascular care, including heart catheterization and other procedures unavailable in the region. And it's thanks, in large part, to Mitchell Silver, DO '89.

For the past year, Silver and his colleagues at MidOhio Cardiology and Vascular Consultants have made the trek from their primary offices in Columbus to Athens for weekly cardiovascular clinics. But their patients still had to go to Lancaster, Parkersburg, or even Columbus for many tests -- if they got them at all.

"In many rural areas, you don't know someone has a heart problem until they present with a heart attack or stroke," Silver says. "The prevalence of cardiovascular disease is much higher in Appalachia, so there's definitely a need."

The need soon will be filled. MidOhio, the College of Osteopathic Medicine and and O'Bleness are cooperating to develop a center for detecting, treating and researching cardiovascular and diabetes problems. The center will be located at O'Bleness in the former medical office building, which is being renovated and expanded from 10,000 square feet to 16,000 square feet.

The cost is being underwritten by O'Bleness, in large part through a Foster B. Cornwell and Helen W. Cornwell Memorial Gift. Foster Cornwell, a prominent Athens attorney, left the hospital $1.2 million in his estate. The hospital is using that gift to build the center, which will be named the Cornwell Center for Cardiovascular and Diabetes Care.

The center's cardiovascular section, directed by Silver, will include a cardiac catheterization laboratory where cardiac and vascular procedures will be performed, physicians' offices, and a non-invasive cardiac and vascular testing center. HeartWorks, the hospital's cardiopulmonary rehabilitation program, will become part of the center, remaining under the direction of Tom Murray. OU-COM endocrinologist Frank Schwartz will head the center's diabetes care section.

The inclusion of diabetes in the center's scope plays off the link between that disease and cardiovascular problems as well as OU-COM's established research focus on diabetes. "We had planned to bring a catheterization lab into the hospital, but we decided to bring all services into one center and create a beautiful synergy," says Rick Castrop, president of O'Bleness.

The proximity of OU-COM and the Edison Biotechnology Institute are big pluses both for the center and scientists. The school's researchers, who rank among some of the best in the world in their fields, often have to go out of state for clinical trials.

"OU-COM has all this great basic science, but the researchers often don't have the opportunity to express that research clinically," Silver explains. "With the center, OU-COM's research, particularly in diabetes, can be taken from the lab bench to the bedside." Such clinical trials also will benefit the center's patients, giving them access to cutting-edge medicine -- and at a much-reduced cost, since the patient's care in clinical trials is paid for by the research budget.

"The more of them we can get in these studies, the better," Silver says.

Silver is no stranger to research. The Akron native almost didn't choose osteopathic medicine as a career because he thought most DOs practiced in primary care specialties. As an undergraduate at Ohio State University, though, he worked with an osteopathic researcher and realized that he could combine his love of research with the holistic medical approach.

After graduating from OU-COM, Silver completed his residency and several fellowships at the Cleveland Clinic. He continued to perform research after joining MidOhio in 2000 through the group's research section, the Midwest Cardiology Research Foundation, which enrolls patients in numerous cardiac and vascular clinical research studies. Silver's primary research interests are in peripheral vascular disease, including carotid artery disease. He and OU-COM's Leonard Kohn are cooperating in a clinical study of atherosclerosis and inflammation -- a good example of how MidOhio and OU-COM can combine basic science and clinical medicine.

"I'm the proof in the pudding that you can be a DO and do research and publish," Silver says.

He convinced his partners at MidOhio to open the cardiovascular clinic at O'Bleness to fill the need for local care -- and also to satisfy his own feeling of indebtedness to OU-COM.

He and other MidOhio cardiologists will continue to commute to Athens after the center opens. Within two years, though, they hope to have a cardiologist living full-time in Athens. Together, Silver, his partners and the staff of the Cornwell Center will give OU-COM researchers and students a new outlet for their work.

"We'll be able to give medical students exposure to and training in cardiovascular medicine, right here in Athens," he says.

Corinne Colbert is editor of The Ohio D.O., a publication of the Ohio University College of Osteopathic Medicine. This article appears in the magazine's winter 2005 issue.

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