Christopher Loscalzo, MD, assistant professor of medicine (cardiovascular medicine) at Yale School of Medicine, will retire in June 2025.
Loscalzo, a grandchild of Italian immigrants, grew up in Long Island, NY. After graduating from Colgate University in 1981, he went on to receive his MD at New York Medical College, followed by training at Montefiore Medical Center and Mount Sinai Medical Center. He established himself in clinical cardiology at a practice in New Haven, Conn.; in 2014, the practice was acquired by Yale New Haven Health.
As a teenager, Loscalzo knew that he wanted to go into a service profession, “to interact with people and make their lives better.”
During his first year in medical school, he had narrowed down his interests to either pediatrics or cardiology; by the end of that year, he’d settled on cardiology.
“The heart and circulatory system just fascinated me,” Loscalzo says. “I was anxious to get out into practice and start working instead of being in training for any longer than I had to be, and that made general or clinical cardiology the best choice.”
Loscalzo treats people with a variety of heart problems, including coronary disease, heart failure, valvular heart disease, and arrhythmias.
In 1995, Loscalzo’s then two-year-old son developed acute lymphoblastic leukemia. The experience, he says, had a major impact on how he approached his career.
“I think my son's serious illness led me to be more concerned about my patients' overall well-being and made me less interested in achieving personal academic greatness,” Loscalzo explains. “I also gained a better appreciation for life in general, and his successful recovery enabled me to put any challenges that came before me into proper perspective.”
In addition to praising his excellence as a cardiologist and his attentiveness to his patients, colleagues admire his commitment to creating a work-life balance.
“It was never about him speeding up the treadmill simply to garner more income,” says Sandip Mukherjee, MD, professor of medicine (cardiovascular medicine), who has worked with Loscalzo for 25 years. “I think he's been good at dictating the terms of his life,” says Mukherjee. “He has other senses of purpose in life, whereas for some people in medicine, it totally defines who they are.”
Loscalzo plans to dedicate more time to his family and his young grandchildren. He also looks forward to further pursuing his renowned passion for birdwatching, a hobby for which he is highly regarded among his colleagues.
“Chris is an ardent and expert birdwatcher,” says Jaime Gerber, MD, associate professor of medicine (cardiovascular medicine). “Not just a dilettante but a true expert. He invited me to the annual Audubon Society migrating hawk count at Lighthouse Point Park in New Haven, where other birding experts gathered around him to hear his identification tips and thoughts. More than once, I or sometimes another partner would interrupt his lunch to excitedly point out some unusual bird visible out the breakroom window. He was never wrong.”
“Chris has been a wonderful cardiologist to legions of patients and their families across the region who have undoubtedly benefited from his wise and outstanding care. The clinical staff and his partners will miss seeing him on a daily basis, but I have no doubt that he will pursue a full and interesting retirement from clinical medicine,” says Eric J. Velazquez, MD, Robert W. Berliner Professor of Medicine (cardiovascular medicine) and chief of Yale Cardiovascular Medicine. “I fashion myself a very amateur backyard birder and look forward to taking him up on his generous offer to accompany him on some birding in the months and years ahead.”
Reflecting on his 35-year career, Loscalzo notes how quickly the years have gone by.
“I try to impart what you might call wisdom to young physicians who are at the beginning of their careers,” he says. “You get busy in practice, you raise a family, you do your work, you're focused on all of that, and it goes by pretty quickly. I tell them to enjoy it, cherish it, because it is obviously a chosen profession. I can happily say that I've enjoyed my entire career.”
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