The publication Cardiovascular Business has named UAB Medicine Quality Improvement Manager Emily Pentecost to its “Forty Under 40” class of 2025. The annual list recognizes young individuals in health care who are making a major impact in the cardiovascular field.
Honorees include cardiologists, researchers, executives, administrators, directors, and entrepreneurs. Cardiovascular Business asked readers to nominate those whom they regarded as “the best and brightest, and who are never satisfied by something being ‘good enough’ or ‘how it’s always been done.’”
Pentecost – who helps oversee quality improvement for the ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) and Comprehensive Heart Attack Center (CHAC) programs at UAB Medicine – certainly fits that description. She has engaged in outreach with emergency medical services (EMS) and transfer facilities to foster meaningful collaboration, advocating with the Alabama EMS Office for a statewide STEMI system and winning the Joe E. Acker Award for Leadership and Innovation from the Birmingham Regional EMS System.
She also provides community education in socioeconomically challenged areas, including hands-only CPR and automated external defibrillator education. Pentecost serves on the American Heart Association’s Southeast Emergency Cardiovascular Care Committee Community Subcommittee. As of July, 2025, Pentecost serves by invitation on the national American Heart Association’s Emergency Cardiovascular Care (ECC) Systems of Care Subcommittee.
According to her colleagues, Pentecost has been pivotal in helping UAB Medicine’s STEMI program achieve certification as a Primary Heart Attack Center (PHAC) in 2023 and a CHAC in 2025. In the words of her peers, Pentecost’s work history makes her “a wonderful advocate for cardiovascular care.”