It’s easy to hear the enthusiasm for clinical trials when William Cromwell, MD, FAHA, FNLA, Principal Investigator and a leader of the Velocity Cardiometabolic CARE Council, discusses their importance to patients yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
Dr. Cromwell is board-certified in Family Medicine and Clinical Lipidology with over 20 years of clinical research experience. As he reflects on his accomplished multi-decade medical career, Dr. Cromwell realizes that it is the clinical trial research work itself that brings him the most joy. This epiphany inspired a professional shift late in his career in 2022.
“I began thinking about what I wanted to do in the last ten-fifteen years of my practice life,” he recalls. “What do I want to do that would make me happy to get up in the morning, that would energize me, that would complement what I’ve done in my career and finish on a high note. And the short answer was clinical research.”
Since completing residency, he has held numerous concurrent roles, practicing medicine, teaching at various universities, and serving as Medical Director, Chief Medical Officer, and Principal Investigator at organizations nationwide. Additionally, Dr. Cromwell served in the United States Army Reserve for nearly a decade, including Operation Desert Storm, where he was awarded the Bronze Star for meritorious service. Currently, he serves on multiple journal editorial boards focusing on Cardiology and Lipidology and has been published in dozens of peer-reviewed publications, books, and abstracts.
Clinical research is “the thing I’ve enjoyed the most through the years that I’ve done, it’s one of the areas of medicine that I think is highly valuable and not going anywhere, bringing new therapeutics to market is going to require clinical research,” Dr. Cromwell says.
Clinical research remains a key component of healthcare, he stresses. “A lot of us in medicine are looking to make a positive contribution, and you can do that by seeing patients. You can also do that by researching, publishing and teaching. One of the things I find very stimulating in the idea that therapeutics are always evolving. Clinical trials allow us to collect the data necessary to move forward.”
“When you think about the ecosystem that we have in medicine, one of the things that’s a stalwart is the need to have good clinical trials,” he says. “Clinical research is a real career path that has a lot of upsides, a lot of intellectual stimulation, and the opportunity to make a contribution” to improving care.
