Dr. David S. Cannom, a longtime leading L.A. cardiologist, died at home in Palos Verdes on Aug. 9 at age 86.
Cannom died from complications from Alzheimer’s disease, according to one of his daughters, Hannah Cannom.
Born May 24, 1940, in Missouri and raised in Illinois and Minnesota, Cannom graduated from DePauw University in 1962. His father had been a Lutheran pastor, so Cannom attended Yale Divinity School for a year on a Rockefeller Fellowship before pursuing his passion for medicine, earning his M.D. from the University of Minnesota Medical School in 1967.
“He carried that with him,” said Phyllis Cannom, his wife of 51 years, of his time studying the ministry. “People were full. They were more than just hearts to him. They were hearts and minds and souls.”
He joined the cardiology faculty at Yale in 1973, and it was there he met Phyllis Monroe, then a senior resident who would herself become a practicing physician as a general internist, and the two would be married in 1974.
They would remain together until Cannom’s death, having three daughters together.
The couple moved to Los Angeles in 1976, and in 1985, Cannom joined the staff at the Hospital of the Good Samaritan, where he would serve as medical director of cardiology for over three decades. He also held a clinical professorship at UCLA.
“I don’t think that there are many people who worked harder than my dad,” said Hannah Cannom, recalling childhood weekends spent hanging out at nurses’ stations around the hospital as her father made his rounds.
Cannom became one of the nation’s leading specialists on heart rhythm disorders and sudden cardiac deaths. He was a pioneer in the emerging field of electrophysiology and in the use of implantable defibrillators, small electronic devices used to monitor the heart’s electrical activity and shock the heart back to normal rhythm when needed. His patients would come to include many prominent personalities around the city, and he was a strong believer in athletes getting back in the game.
In a Times op-ed following the 1990 death of Loyola Marymount basketball player Hank Gathers, Cannom advocated for increased screenings and treatments for cardiac arrhythmias, writing, “If any good is to come out of the Hank Gathers tragedy, it will be in helping to prevent such a premature ending to other lives, whether young or old.”
He authored/co-authored more than 175 research articles and helped train generations of specialists. He received numerous awards for his work and held leadership positions in multiple organizations, including the Heart Rhythm Society and the American College of Cardiology for California.
After retiring in 2022, Cannom volunteered at the John Wesley Clinic in downtown Los Angeles, helping the homeless and underserved communities who might not otherwise receive cardiac care.
“The work that he did after he retired, he was really proud of,” Hannah Cannom said. “He spent his life going to these cardiology conferences where he was lauded as a pioneer in the industry. And then he would go to these homeless conferences, and he was just there to learn. He was really passionate about it.”
An avid sports fan who enjoyed playing tennis and was often at Lakers and Dodgers games, Cannom was also a longtime subscriber to both the symphony and the L.A. Opera. Whenever Cannom was out in public, at events or dinners with his family, it was not unusual for people to thank him for the work he had done to save their loved ones.
“You couldn’t really go anywhere with him and not have someone stop him and tell us stories about his impact on their lives,” Hannah Cannom recalled.
He is survived by his wife Phyllis; his daughters, Elizabeth Cannom Meyer (Jeff), Rebecca Cannom Doessant (Emmanuel), and Hannah Cannom (Aaron Moore); six grandchildren; his sister, Carol Ferrell; three nieces; and his brother-in-law, David Ross Monroe.
Services are pending. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that contributions be made to the David Cannom Scholarship Fund at Chadwick School, the John Wesley Clinic, the Heart Rhythm Society, or the Lundquist Institute at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center.
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