Hugh Grosvenor Calkins is an American cardiologist and academic. He is the Catherine Ellen Poindexter Professor of Cardiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where he directs the Clinical Electrophysiology Laboratory, the Cardiac Arrhythmia Service, and the Arrhythmogenic Right Ventricular Dysplasia (ARVD) Program at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. His research concerns cardiac electrophysiology, catheter ablation of cardiac arrhythmias, atrial fibrillation, syncope, and arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy (ARVC).
Contents
Early life and education
Calkins is the sixth of nine children of Evan and Virginia Calkins, and grew up in Hamburg, New York, where he graduated from Hamburg High School in 1975. He earned a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Williams College, graduating magna cum laude, and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He then received his Doctor of Medicine from Harvard Medical School, completed a residency in internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital, and trained in cardiology at Johns Hopkins, followed by fellowship training in cardiac electrophysiology at Johns Hopkins and the University of Michigan.
Career
Calkins began his academic career at the University of Michigan Medical School, where his first faculty position included directing the pacemaker and implantable defibrillator laboratory. He subsequently returned to Johns Hopkins, where he became director of the Clinical Electrophysiology Laboratory and the Cardiac Arrhythmia Service.
His clinical and research work has focused on catheter ablation for the treatment of cardiac arrhythmias, including supraventricular tachycardia, Wolff–Parkinson–White syndrome, ventricular tachycardia, and atrial fibrillation, as well as on syncope and arrhythmogenic right ventricular cardiomyopathy. In 1999 he established the Johns Hopkins ARVD/C Program and its patient registry, which provides evaluation, treatment and research for people with known or suspected ARVD/C.
Professional service
Calkins served as president of the Heart Rhythm Society from 2013 to 2014. He has served on the editorial boards of journals including Circulation, Circulation: Arrhythmia and Electrophysiology, Heart Rhythm, and the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.
He co-chaired international consensus statements on catheter ablation of atrial fibrillation, including a 44-member international task force that produced the 2012 expert consensus statement, and the 2017 HRS/EHRA/ECAS/APHRS/SOLAECE consensus document.
Awards and honors
First prize, North American Society of Pacing and Electrophysiology (NASPE) Young Investigator Competition (1988)
Helen B. Taussig Award, Maryland Affiliate of the American Heart Association (1999)
Van Ruyven Medal, Heart Lung Foundation Utrecht (2012)
Elected to the Association of American Physicians
Founders Lectureship Award, Heart Rhythm Society (2019)
Eric N. Prystowsky Lectureship Award, Heart Rhythm Society (2023)
Distinguished Service Award, Heart Rhythm Society (2024)
Selected publications
Calkins H, Sousa J, el-Atassi R, et al. "Diagnosis and cure of the Wolff–Parkinson–White syndrome or paroxysmal supraventricular tachycardias during a single electrophysiologic test." New England Journal of Medicine. 1991;324(23):1612–1618.
Calkins H, Langberg J, Sousa J, et al. "Radiofrequency catheter ablation of accessory atrioventricular connections in 250 patients." Circulation. 1992;85(4):1337–1346.
Calkins H, Hindricks G, Cappato R, et al. "2017 HRS/EHRA/ECAS/APHRS/SOLAECE expert consensus statement on catheter and surgical ablation of atrial fibrillation." Heart Rhythm. 2017;14(10):e275–e444.