Karl B. Kern, MD, FSCAI
Karl B. Kern, MD, FSCAI, is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Arizona, where he is the Gordon A. Ewy, MD Distinguished Endowed Chair of Cardiovascular Medicine. Dr. Kern is also a Co-Director of the Sarver Heart Center at the University of Arizona. Following his graduation from Brigham Young University (magna cum laude), he attended Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia, where he graduated with honors as Alpha Omega Alpha in 1980. His postgraduate education and training, including his Cardiology Fellowship were at the University of Arizona. Dr. Kern is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians, a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology, a Fellow of the Council of Clinical Cardiology and the Cardiopulmonary, Peri-Operative, and Critical Care Council of the American Heart Association, a Fellow of the American College of Chest Physicians, and a Fellow of the Society of Cardiovascular Angiography and Intervention. He has received numerous teaching awards throughout his academic career, including House Officer Educator of the Year, and the Cardiology Fellowship Teaching and Mentoring Awards. He has been on the Dean’s List for excellence in teaching and is a Dean’s Teaching Scholar at the University of Arizona. He was recognized by the UofA cardiology fellows as the Best CCU Attending in 2016 and the Best Research Mentor Award in 2019. Dr. Kern has also been active internationally as a teacher and has served as a Visiting Professor at the Leopold Franzens University, Innsbruck, Austria (2001), at the Anhembi Morumbi University in Sao Paulo, Brazil (2007), at the National Cardiovascular Center in Osaka, Japan (2008),), and at the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil (2002, 2001, 2000, and 2015)
Dr. Kern is an active interventional cardiologist with his clinical practice based at the University of Arizona Sarver Heart Center. Dr. Kern has been named one of the “Best Doctors in America” (Woodward and White, Inc.) continuously since 1996. He is a past Governor of Arizona for the American College of Cardiology as well as a Past Chairman of the Emergency Cardiac Care committee for that organization. He has been involved with the AHA since 1985 and has served as the President of the Old Pueblo (Tucson) Division (1992) and President of the Arizona Affiliate (1993). He was a member of the AHA National ACLS subcommittee from 1994 until 2002, and served as Chairman for three years, during which time the “Guidelines 2000 for CPR and ECC” were completed and published. He served as the chair the AHA Cardiopulmonary, Peri-Operative, and Critical Care Council (2011-13), Vice-Chair of the AHA ECC Committee (2015-2017), and he is the immediate past Chair of the AHA ECC Committee (2018-19). Currently, Dr. Kern serves as the Chairman of the AHA Oversight and Advisory Committee for the Arrhythmias and Sudden Cardiac Death Strategic Research Network.
Dr. Kern’s research interests have centered on cardiopulmonary resuscitation and he has been an active investigator of CPR since 1983. He is the Coordinator of the University of Arizona /Sarver Heart Center Resuscitation Research Group, which developed both “Chest Compression-Only Basic Life Support CPR” and “Cardiocerebral Resuscitation”. Chest Compression-Only CPR is now used world-wide, and in communities that have adapted the full Cardiocerebral Resuscitation approach survival from out-of-hospital cardiac arrest has doubled or even tripled. He was the PI of the PEARL Study, a pilot RCT examining the utility of early coronary angiography versus not in post arrest patients without ST elevation on their ECGs. Dr. Kern has over 275 publications, including 205 original research reports, most in the field of resuscitation science. During 2014, he was awarded honorary membership in the European Resuscitation Council in recognition of life-long commitment and leadership in Resuscitation, and the Drexel University College of Medicine’s Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2015, he was honored as an International Liaison Committee on Resuscitation (ILCOR) and American Heart Association (AHA) “CPR Giant”. In 2016, Dr. Kern received the Lifetime Achievement in Health Care Award from the local Media group in Tucson, Arizona, and in 2017 he was honored for his achievements in improving survival from cardiac arrest victims at the Tucson Heart and Stroke Ball of the AHA. In 2019, he received the Complex Cardiovascular Catheter Therapeutics (C3) Lifetime Career Achievement Award for his work on PCI after cardiac arrest.
