P.K. Shah

For P.K. Shah, MD, saving lives is more than a professional vocation – it is also a personal passion. Shortly after he graduated from high school in Kashmir, India, at age 13, his older sister was diagnosed with a rare, rapidly progressive cancer; she died three months later. Dr. Shah has been committed to expanding the boundaries of medical possibility ever since.

It’s a commitment he has leveraged to great effect. As the Shapell and Webb Family Chair in Clinical Cardiology at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Dr. Shah sets the standard for superior clinical care and breakthrough research and discovery. His work helps unlock the mysteries of the human heart, transforming patient outcomes by making critical strides in the treatment of acute coronary syndromes and congestive heart failure.

Ranked among the top cardiologists in the country, Dr. Shah is renowned for seeing what lies beyond the scientific horizon. His pioneering research, conducted in collaboration with colleagues around the globe, has paved the way for the development of a vaccine for atherosclerosis and devised a strategy capable of reversing arterial cholesterol buildup. Dr. Shah is quick to credit his success to the people who make it possible: “ derive one of greatest joys from taking care of patients, and philanthropic support has allowed research program to thrive.”

After attending medical school in India, Dr. Shah completed three residencies – one in neurology at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences in New Delhi and one in internal medicine at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, before completing a cardiology fellowship at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. In over 35 years as an attending cardiologist with Cedars-Sinai, Dr. Shah has continued to raise the bar on achievement, assuming an extraordinary range of leadership roles including director of inpatient cardiology and the coronary care unit and founder and director of the Helga and Walter Oppenheimer Atherosclerosis Research Center.

Over the course of a truly remarkable career, Dr. Shah’s more than 650 contributions to scientific papers, reviews, book chapters, and abstracts have been prolific and include editing or co-editing four textbooks on heart disease. He has been an active leader of the American Heart Association and the American College of Cardiology. He is the recipient of numerous awards, including Cedars-Sinai’s most prestigious honor, the Pioneer in Medicine Award, as well as the Distinguished Scientist Award from the American College of Cardiology, and the James B. Herrick Award from the American Heart Association.