dad's heart attack was A Wake-Up Call

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By Michele Meyer
Photo by Alex Kaplan

Dr. Lori Mosca's career path was clinched the night her father came to her room in agony, suffering from a heart attack.

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The heart attack suffered by Lori Labella Mosca’s father happened exactly as she had seen it portrayed in the movies. Joseph Labella, 53, staggered to her room, sweating profusely. He had a look of agony on his face and his fist clenched against his chest.

At the time, Lori was a 23-year-old medical student at Upstate Medical University in Syracuse, New York, and living with her parents. She was studying when her father came to her room for help, and she recognized the textbook signs of a heart attack.

As doctors raced to save him, “I wondered if he’d survive—and what we could have done to prevent it,” she says. “I realized I had a lot of questions but no answers.”

Her father survived, and as a result of that life-changing experience, she decided to devote her medical and scientific career to the prevention of heart disease. In addition, Lori went on to get degrees in public health and epidemiology.

During her medical residency, Lori says, she saw that “more than 90 percent of heart attacks, strokes, and other vascular disease were due to unhealthy living.” That motivated her to passionately encourage her patients to lead a heart-healthy lifestyle that includes plenty of exercise and a low-fat, fiber-rich, plant-based diet.

And she lives it. She met her husband, pediatric heart surgeon Ralph Mosca, not at medical school, but at the pool where she worked as a lifeguard. “We have shared a lot, but our love of swimming was the first thing that drew us together,” Lori says.

She and son Matt, 17, often are out at dawn, training for their next triathlon. After work, she and son Mike, 14, perform gymnastics on a trampoline. And on Sundays, the entire family pitches in to slice fruits and vegetables for the next week.