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What is a cardiologist?
A cardiologist is a health care specialist who is trained to find, treat and prevent diseases of the heart and blood vessels.
Cardiologists are required to complete 4 years of medical school and 3 years of training in internal medicine before completing 3 or 4 years of specialized training. To become certified by the American Board of Internal Medicine, a cardiologist must complete a minimum of 10 years of clinical and educational preparation and then pass a 2-day exam.
Apart from general clinical cardiologists, there are several types of specialists within the cardiology field, including adult congenital cardiologists, cardiovascular investigators, computed tomography/magnetic resonance imaging cardiologist, electrophysiologists, echocardiologist or echocardiographer, heart failure and transplant cardiologists, interventional cardiologists, nuclear cardiologists, preventive cardiologists and vasculare medicine specialists.
Cardiologists are not surgeons, but they may perform procedures that require small skin punctures or incisions. They may also insert pacemakers. Because they are specialists, cardiologists are often required to work with general practitioners or other specialists. Cardiologists may work in single or group practices, or in a hospital or health care system. Some of the treatments used by a cardiologist include cardiac catheterization, balloon angioplasty or heart surgery.
Cardiologists may also perform or analyze blood tests. They may evaluate for blood sugar, brain-type natriuretic peptide, C-reactive proteins, creatinine kinase, HDL or LDL cholesterol, hemoglobin, homocysteine, lipoproteins, myoglobin, triglycerides or troponin.
A host of conditions may be treated by a cardiologist, including atrial fibrillation, cardiomyopathy (heart muscle disease), congenital heart disease, coronary artery disease, cardiomegaly (enlarged heart), heart attacks, heart valve disease, irregular heart rhythms, Marfan syndrome, pericarditis or pericardial effusion.
Patients may see a cardiologist after experiencing symptoms such as shortness of breath, chest pains or dizzy spells. Some conditions may be diagnosed by office visits, whereas others require specialized tests such as cardiac stress testing, echocardiogram, electrocardiogram, event monitoring, Holter monitoring or medical imaging.
Additional information about cardiologists may be found at these websites:
http://www.escardio.org/Pages/index.aspx
http://www.cardiosource.org/acc
http://www.cardiosmart.org/cardiosmart/default.aspx?id=192
http://content.onlinejacc.org/