Susan Smyth, M.D., Ph.D., joined UAMS and the Department of Internal Medicine in June 2021. She served as Executive Vice Chancellor, Dean of the College of Medicine, and Professor in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine until her death on December 31, 2022. She was a renowned and accomplished cardiologist, educator, scientist, and mentor whose impact on the UAMS community was significant. During her time at UAMS, she advanced the College’s efforts to serve rural areas and to produce primary care physicians, which received national praise and recognition. She educated numerous resident and fellow physicians through her dedicated clinical care at UAMS and proud service at the John L. McClellan Memorial Veterans’ Hospital, where she also led a productive research group.
Dr. Smyth was born in Chapel Hill, North Carolina and graduated from Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts. She earned both a medical degree and a doctorate of pharmacology from the University of North Carolina. It was during this time that she met her husband, Andrew Morris, Ph.D. She completed her residency in internal medicine at University Medical Center in Stony Brook, New York where she also served for a year as Chief Resident prior to joining cardiovascular medicine fellowships at Mount Sinai and the University of North Carolina. Throughout her graduate medical education and career, Dr. Smyth continued her research on platelet biology and platelet-leukocyte interactions, which led to great advances in the field of thromboinflammation. She was the principal investigator on several NIH-funded grants and authored numerous articles and textbook chapters related to this research.
Prior to joining UAMS, Dr. Smyth was the Jeff Gill Professor of Cardiology, chief of the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine, and director of the Gill Heart and Vascular Institute at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine.