Dr. Susan Wiegers Joins Temple as Senior Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs and Professor of Medicine
Nationally recognized cardiologist Susan E. Wiegers, MD, has joined Temple University School of Medicine as Senior Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs and Professor of Medicine. She served previously as Director of Clinical Echocardiography at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania.
As Senior Associate Dean of Faculty Affairs, Dr. Wiegers will be responsible for spearheading the recruitment of under-represented minorities and women to faculty positions in Temple’s School of Medicine; and implementing professional-development programs to enable all faculty to advance to leadership positions within Temple’s healthcare enterprise and throughout academic medicine nation-wide.
Working with all departmental Chairs within Temple’s medical school, Dr. Wiegers will also develop effective mentoring programs to help meet the needs of all faculty who strive to balance their multi-faceted professional challenges with quality-of-life needs at the personal/home level.
A board-certified cardiologist with expertise in echocardiography, Dr. Wiegers will also see patients and train residents and fellows at Temple University Hospital in the use of state-of-the-art, three-dimensional echo equipment, transesophageal and intracardiac echo, and the subsequent clinical interpretation of echocardiograms.
The accurate interpretation of echocardiograms is a critical skill set in diagnosing heart conditions and determining the next level of treatment required. In particular, accurate interpretations are vital in the support of active robotic cardiac-surgery programs, such as the one at Temple University Hospital.
Dr. Wiegers earned a bachelor’s degree in Physics from Cornell University; and a Medical Degree in 1981 from the University of Rochester. Following an internship and residency in Internal Medicine at Strong Memorial Hospital (Rochester, NY), she completed fellowships in Cardiology and Echocardiology at Boston University School of Medicine and Harvard-affiliate Massachusetts General Hospital, respectively. In 1989, Dr. Wiegers completed a Clinical and Research fellowship in Medicine at Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Wiegers is the recipient of numerous teaching awards, including the nationally-renowned “Richard Popp Excellence in Teaching Award” from the American Society of Echocardiography. In 2001, she was the sole recipient of the “Humanism in Medicine Award” from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.
She is a member of numerous professional societies and organizations, including the American College of Cardiology, the American Society of Echocardiography, and the Association of Black Cardiologists. Dr. Wiegers has lectured and presented on a variety of topics related to interventional echocardiography, echocardiographic assessment of endocarditis, cardiomyopathy, valvular heart disease, and mitral valve repair. She is a contributor to many professional publications, including Circulation, the Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography, and Echocardiography.