Cardiology

[jliley]

What areas of Cardiology do people specialise in and what do the areas cover? eg. I understand that you get "Interventional Cardiologists," "Cardiothoracic Surgeons," Doctors specialising in Cardiology but they're not surgeons etc.

[LadyMK]

Hi,
I'm new to this forum. I've always thought of heart doctors as falling into two main camps. Some are "plumbers" and some are "electricians."
The plumbers are the ones who deal with the clogs, valves, and the "pipes" of the heart (coronary arteries, other blood vessels).
The electricians are the ones who deal with sudden cardiac death, arrhythmias, pacemakers, and that kind of stuff.
An interventional cardiologist is a plumber who mainly "intervenes" or gets involved in some kind of procedure like a cardiac catheterization.
A cardiac surgeon or cardiothoracic surgeon does open-heart or open-chest surgery like bypasses or valve repair/replacement and so on. There is probably a sub-specialty of this as guys (and gals) who specialize in heart transplants.
The electricians are called electrophysiologists or EPs for short. They do arrhythmia stuff, pacemakers, defibrillators; they work on Afib and so on.
I think the lines are a little blurry in that doctors often do what their practice and interests requires. I know some EPs who implant pacemakers but do not "follow" them, that is, don't see the patients for check-ups. I know some cardiologists who implant pacemakers although they don't do any other type of surgery.
Hope this answer isn't too long!
Mandy

[jliley]

Cheers mandy

[LadyMK]

Thanks! I can't take credit for the plumbers and electricians but the first time I heard it, it made so much sense.