Professor Angela Maas, Clinical Cardiologist
Acknowledged as one of the most influential female doctors, and champion for women's health
Professor Angela Maas, MD, PhD has been a clinical cardiologist with over thirty years of experience, practicing clinical cardiology. Prof Maas has a specific interest in women providing training programs and lectures at an international level on the prevention of heart disease in women. She has conducted research into female-specific risk factors, including pre-eclampsia, early menopause and how cardiovascular risk factors vary between men and women.
She established the first outpatient clinic for women in the Netherlands in 2003. Prof Maas has held the 'chair' in Cardiology for women at the Radboudumc in Nijmegen since 2012. She focuses on the early identification of women at increased cardiovascular risk especially for symptom evaluation in women at middle-age.
She has initiated several multicenter collaborative projects with other disciplines to improve healthy ageing in women. Prof Maas has been awarded the Dutch Society of Female Physicians (2010), the Radboud University (2014) and was knighted by the King in 2017.
As such Prof Maas is acknowledged as one of the most influential female doctors in Dutch and international healthcare and is the 2020/21 Women’s representative of the Dutch Government to the United Nations.
Why choose cardiology?
"It wasn’t until my last year of medical school that I finally chose cardiology. Why? I think because cardiology is about making decisions fast, and that suited my character. With internal medicine, doctors may think for weeks about something. That’s not my style."
Personal approach to healthcare
"When we empower women in healthcare, we elevate the importance of these topics related to women’s health because women are likely to be more interested in them."
"My own experience is instructive. I’ve been asked to join various scientific committees, and am also now a senior reviewer of the Lancet Commission on Women and Health. I’m currently involved in the creation of a position paper about global cardiovascular health in women, and I was elected last year to be a Dutch delegate to the UN, starting in 2020."
"I am proud that I have helped to improve care for female patients, and I hope I have helped to change the culture a bit. But change always happens more slowly than you want, and it is always made by many people, not just by one person. Still, in the last 5 years we’ve made more progress than was made in the preceding 20 years. I’m pleased to have been a part of it."
"There are also plenty of female cardiology pioneers elsewhere in Europe and in the US, who have been brave enough to go against the mainstream and to fight to change the ways women are diagnosed and treated."