Region's First Dedicated Cardiovascular
Center at UC San Diego Ready for Patients

Kim Edwards | March 7, 2011

The Sulpizio family joined together to cut the ribbon on the hospital that honors their name including many of Richard and Gaby Sulpizio's grandchildren.

The doors of the UC San Diego Sulpizio Cardiovascular Center (SCVC) will welcome patients from across the county and around the world beginning April 3.  Six years after receiving a naming gift from the Sulpizio family, the center will open as the region’s first comprehensive, state-of-the art cardiovascular patient care and research facility.

In celebration of the SCVC opening, UC San Diego Health System leadership, donors, friends, and community leaders joined in a ceremonial ribbon cutting at 11 a.m. Friday.

“We’ve aspired to this kind of center for 40 years,” said SCVC director Dr. Kirk Peterson, , who is also professor of clinical cardiology and a cardiology consultant for the Naval Regional Medical Center and the VA San Diego Healthcare System. “The SCVC represents the culmination of that effort – to have a facility in which all disciplines render cardiac care—housed where we can all work in close proximity.”

The Sulpizio Cardiovascular Center will open its doors April 3

“This type of collaboration is unique and does not exist anywhere else in San Diego,” said Dr. Michael Madani, associate professor of surgery and co-director of the SCVC.  “Already, there has been a lot of positive energy generated by combining our efforts and working as a team under the same leadership.”

The four-story, 128,000-square-foot building has four operating rooms, four catherization labs, 22 day beds, 27 acute care beds and an expanded emergency department, shared with Thornton Hospital. 

“The SCVC is a community resource,” said Dr. Ehtisham Mahmud, professor of medicine and cardiology, director of interventional cardiology and cardiovascular catheterization labs and co-director of the SCVC. “Cardiovascular medicine and surgical specialists will work together to determine optimal treatment strategies and, as the only comprehensive academic medical center in the region, we also train and educate the next generation of specialists in these fields.”