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Johns Hopkins Cardiologist and Trustee Nicholas J. Fortuin, M.d., 69 - 04/12/2010

Johns Hopkins Cardiologist and Trustee Nicholas J. Fortuin, M.d., 69

Release Date: April 12, 2010

April 12, 2010-Nicholas J. Fortuin, M.D., one of Johns Hopkins Medicine’s most dedicated and admired clinical cardiologists, teachers and institutional leaders, died unexpectedly near Owings Mills Sunday while biking, his favorite sport and pastime. The cause of death was not known, but it is likely he suffered a heart attack, colleagues say.

“Nick Fortuin was a physician’s physician and a tremendously accomplished cardiologist,” said Edward D. Miller, M.D., dean and CEO of Johns Hopkins Medicine. “But he also distinguished himself as a teacher and mentor, and as a superb citizen of Johns Hopkins Medicine, serving as a trustee of The Johns Hopkins Hospital for a quarter of a century, and a trustee of Johns Hopkins Medicine since JHM’s inception. His devotion to Johns Hopkins, his patients, his students and his colleagues will be missed.”

Patients, colleagues, friends and family recalled that he was caring for patients as late as last Friday.  His first meeting with colleagues was at 7:30 a.m., medical grand rounds followed at 8 a.m., then teaching and reading diagnostic images with fellows at 9 a.m. From 10:30 a.m. he was with his patients, including two who had cardiac catheterization procedures performed at The Johns Hopkins Hospital, and saw another nine later at Hopkins’ Green Spring Station clinic.

Fortuin, 69, a professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and its Heart and Vascular Institute, was a pioneer in echocardiography, using ultrasound technology to assess the heart’s structure and pumping ability and translate the images into sophisticated diagnostics and treatment guidelines.

“I recruited Dr. Fortuin and was very proud to have done that,” said Richard S. Ross, M.D., cardiologist and dean emeritus of the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. “He persuaded me back in the 1970s that echocardiography was the wave of the future and in fact he was a pioneer in what is now a standard, and indispensable, part of cardiac care. Most of all, he was a strong, clinical cardiologist, a forceful voice in his field, and one who solved innumerable, seemingly insoluble problems. Doctors would follow a patient for years and miss a diagnosis, and Nick would see that patient and figure it out immediately.”

Noted for his commitment to his patients and students, Fortuin served not only on JHH and JHM trustee boards, but also served for two years as president of the board of trustees of The Johns Hopkins School of Nursing. Fortuin was recruited to Johns Hopkins to become inaugural director of its echocardiography lab, in 1971.  It was also under Ross’ tutelage that Fortuin, immediately after graduating from Cornell Medical College, joined the ranks of Hopkins medical staff in 1965 to further pursue his clinical training in medicine and cardiology.

After returning to Hopkins from a stint in the public health service of North Carolina, it became Fortuin’s newfound mission to establish echocardiography as a permanent part of the its research, training and clinical enterprises..  He opened the research laboratory and began a weekly meeting, or echocardiography conference, where other faculty and he would review intriguing patient case studies and interpret or read their echocardiograms with cardiology fellows, a practice that continues to this day.  Thousands of patients and several hundred cardiologists have benefited from his skill, training and mentorship, Fortuin’s colleagues say.  He went on to serve on several editorial boards for cardiology journals in the field. 

“The Department of Medicine, the Division of Cardiology and Johns Hopkins Medicine have lost one of their most committed teachers, physicians and academic leaders,” says cardiologist Myron Weisfeldt, M.D., the William Osler Professor of Medicine and director of the Department of Medicine at Hopkins. “There are generations of cardiology fellows whose echocardiography skills are entirely the product of Fortuin’s instruction, mentoring and cajoling.

“Combined with his 25 years of service as a trustee of The Johns Hopkins Hospital, and as a trustee of Johns Hopkins Medicine, his professional career symbolized but, more importantly, enhanced, the importance of the skillful clinician and clinician educator that is fundamental to the Hopkins mission,” added Weisfeldt, who is also physician in chief at The Johns Hopkins Hospital.

“It was one of the singular pleasures of my career to have written the letter successfully nominating Dr Fortuin for promotion to professor. But his patients, too, knew his worth,” Weisfeldt noted.  “They provided him with one of the most prestigious honors possible: a chair endowed in his name, to be occupied by an equally skilled and committed physician and teacher.”

In 2008, some 300 of Fortuin’s patients, colleagues, health and medical organizations honored his clinical skills by establishing the named professorship held by Hopkins cardiac electrophysiologist Hugh Calkins, M.D., who founded a patient registry in 1998 for those with inherited heart rhythm disorders and is also director of its arrhythmia programs.

 “I am terribly saddened by the tragic and untimely death of Nick Fortuin,” says Calkins, the Nicholas J. Fortuin Professor of Medicine at Hopkins.

“Nick was my mentor and friend, an outstanding clinical cardiologist and he represented the very best of Hopkins Medicine,” Calkins added. “He taught me many things, but most of all that the patient always comes first. Most striking to me about his remarkable career was how generous he was with his time, both for patients and colleagues. I am deeply honored to have been the inaugural recipient of the professorship that bears his name. Our community has lost a wonderful doctor and colleague.”

Fortuin was born in Paterson, NJ.  He is survived by his wife, Diane (Dinnie), and three daughters, Elizabeth Lyle, Julianne, and Karen Hay, and eight grandchildren.   

For the Media

Media contact:

David March 410-955-1534; [email protected]