Their words inspire hope and their actions save lives. Cardiologists make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe by diagnosing, treating and preventing diseases that mainly affect the heart and blood vessels. Continue Reading
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Explore Career Their words inspire hope and their actions save lives. Cardiologists make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe by diagnosing, treating and preventing diseases that mainly affect the heart and blood vessels.
What are the typical responsibilities of a Cardiologist?
A Cardiologist would typically need to:
Cardiologists usually work with a range of patients, from babies and young infants to the elderly, depending on their field of expertise. They work alongside cardiac and cardiothoracic surgeons, cardiac physiologists, specialist nurses, medical secretaries, and administrative staff. Specialists also work closely with other hospital specialties and primary care physicians.
Practitising Cardiologists usually work in a hospital while those following an academic or research path work in a lab environment. Regular travel during the workweek may be required if you are a consultant at various health care facilities.
Adhere to the dress code mantra of ‘dress in a manner which is likely to inspire public confidence.’ Patients are people at their most vulnerable; first impressions are crucial. They want their healthcare providers to dress professionally - to instill in them that vital confidence boost. By and large, patients prefer their health care providers to wear white coats rather than scrubs or dress clothes. Comfortable shoes are essential for long shifts in a hospital. Comfortable, smart, and practical clothes in cheerful colors are crucial to getting physicians through a grueling day.
Some Cardiologists work more than 60 hours per week regularly.
A consultant Cardiologist spends three-quarters of their time during a typical week on direct clinical care involving inpatients, outpatients, and laboratory work. Their schedules also include time for team meetings, clinical administration, and being on-call. Nearly 70 percent of consultants say they are routinely on-call during weekends.
The rest of their week may include support activities such as clinical management meetings, advice to colleagues in other specialties, liaising with community and primary care services, audit, service improvement, teaching and assessing junior staff, clinical research, and their continuing professional development.
Inpatients generally arrive at the emergency department and are admitted to the cardiac care unit.
Cardiologists may choose to practice solo or in a group practice. They may opt to be employed by or work on an independent contractor basis with health care facilities. They may choose temporary locum tenens positions offered by practices, hospitals, or healthcare organizations with an unfilled clinical need.They have excellent opportunities to work abroad.
Cardiologists are generally employed by:
Healthcare associations like the International Society of Cardiology Scientific Council on Epidemiology and Prevention provide unparalleled networking and educational opportunities. They offer all the certification courses members will need throughout their professional careers.
Affiliated Cardiologists may attend conventions, seminars, and dinners frequented by peers, mentors, and other industry leaders. The events help them keep up with the newest breakthroughs and latest developments in the field, including plum jobs.
To demonstrate their commitment to the long qualifying period, every applicant to a medical program needs work experience in their local hospital, doctor's surgery, nursing home, or mental health trust. It will help them understand some of the physical and emotional demands of a career in medicine.
Some teaching hospitals also offer work experience in their cardiology departments, specifically for secondary school students interested in a medical degree and a Cardiologist’s career. This can be a useful way to gain insight. Check with your local hospital for specific details.
The entire program that leads a student to certification as a Cardiologist comprises focused hands-on experience with modern treatment techniques and technology trends. As in any career, reading as much as possible about the profession, talking with a high school counselor, and interviewing those working in cardiology are other important ways to explore your interest.
Cardiologists obtain either a four-year Doctor of Medicine (MD) degree or a Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO) degree. They need to complete a three-year internal medicine residency followed by a three-year fellowship in the prevention, diagnosis and management of a wide range of cardiac conditions. Cardiologists may now opt for a cardiology subspecialty fellowship.
Certification demonstrates competence in a skill or set of skills, typically through work experience, training, the passage of an examination, or some combination of the three. Certification from an objective and reputed organization in internal medicine and cardiovascular disease can help you gain professional credibility, encourage renewal, and become an independent consultant. Successful certification programs protect public welfare by incorporating a Code of Ethics. The reassurance that members who practice outside the Code will be investigated and held accountable earns the community’s trust and respect, which are the most critical elements in securing a Cardiologist’s future. All Cardiologists need a license to practice. Individual government entities conduct licensing. It typically requires the passage of an examination in addition to the fulfillment of eligibility requirements, such as a minimum level of education, work experience, training, or the completion of an internship, residency, or apprenticeship.
Performance, experience, and acquisition of professional qualifications drive career progression. As a recently qualified junior Cardiologist, your experience will build as you take on more duties and understand more about the area or combination of areas you would like to work across more specifically.
After a few years, as you progress to become a senior Cardiologist, you will continue to develop your chosen areas of specialty. You will also have the opportunity to build leadership and management skills. Cardiologist consultants generally choose to continue extensive training in additional specialties, which means that as you progress to this position, you can expect to receive high salaries and have more opportunity to take on senior-level management roles within hospitals.
As an academic Cardiologist, you will engage with pioneering research, which can significantly influence the field (this could be prevention, intervention, medicine, or surgery). You will develop both your research and teaching skills, with the opportunity to blend academia and education within your portfolio.
Cardiologists with high energy levels, compassion, and professionalism are best-equipped for a high-stress job with minimal downtime.
Ideal career progression happens when Cardiologists actively expand their skill-sets and meet the requirements of their respective regulatory bodies. In recent years, an important consideration in medical education has been transforming the masses of facts and skills that doctors accumulate in their training into adaptive clinical skills that work in the real world.
The central concern of continuing professional development (CPD) is lifelong learning with its application to professional lives. CPD is more than just a policy or some form of bureaucratic procedure. It is not just a set of boxes to be ticked mindlessly. CPD is value-laden and embraces several new learning objectives, educational methodologies, and novel technological developments, especially in education, management, and IT.
Reflective learning, interaction with peer groups, comprehensive inclusion, workshops, and professional publications serve to educate, influence, support, and foster lifelong enlightenment in all career-grade Cardiologists.
Cardiologists interested in academic research can expect support and additional training from their academic institution or from Vitae, a non-profit global leader with over 50 years’ experience in enhancing researchers’ skills. In partnership with governments, funders of research, academies, professional bodies, trusts & foundations, universities, and research institutes, Vitae offers training, resources, events, consultancy, and membership.
Referrals to Cardiologists
Typically, primary physicians refer their patients to a Cardiologist when they detect potential issues based on symptoms such as shortness of breath, chest pains, or dizzy spells, which often require special testing. Sometimes heart murmurs or ECG changes need a Cardiologist’s evaluation, as do decisions about procedures such as cardiac catheterization, balloon angioplasty, or heart surgery. The specialty of cardiology is at the cutting edge of new therapies and technologies, with emergency treatment often required.
What Falls Under the Umbrella of a Cardiologist’s Care?
Cardiologists manage patients with a variety of conditions. These include angina (chest pain caused by narrowing of the coronary arteries); arrhythmias, e.g., atrial fibrillation (irregular heartbeat); heart murmurs due to heart valve disease; cardiomyopathy (disease of the heart muscle) with heart failure including pulmonary; edema (accumulation of fluid); coronary artery thrombosis or myocardial infarction (heart attack) often associated with high blood pressure (hypertension) and high cholesterol; diseases of the arteries (atherosclerosis & atheroma); hole in the heart and other forms of congenital heart disease within adult life including the transition from pediatric care and shared care of pregnant women with heart disease.
Specializations
While Cardiologists are not surgeons, many undergo training in cardiac catheterizations that require small skin punctures or incisions, and some put in pacemakers as well. However, others specialize in office diagnosis (diagnosis in the office/clinical setting) and the performance & interpretation of echocardiograms, ECGs, and exercise tests. Some have special skills in cholesterol management or cardiac rehabilitation & fitness. The bottom line is that all Cardiologists know when to prescribe specific tests and how to manage cardiac emergencies.
A Cardiologist can opt for a model of medical practice from among the following alternatives.
Solo Practice
A small staff and a limited patient base usually characterize solo practice without partners or employment affiliations with other practice organizations. It allows the physician to design, grow, and develop a unique style of medical care.
On the flip side, medical care (such as the need to manage hospital care and weekend coverage for patients) and the entire business enterprise rests on the sole physician. Developing agreements with insurers and documentation for regulations involves considerable work.
Solo practices are often at substantial financial risk due to the costs of doing business, possible lack of referrals, the small patient base, shifting patient allegiances because of insurance issues, income loss caused by illness or vacation, and the extent of the physician’s educational debt.
Suburban or rural areas are often better suited to solo practice because of significant medical needs and less competition from medical resources. Some local hospitals affiliate with and support solo practices (financially or with access to electronic medical records) in maintaining their patient base.
Group Practice
The group practice may comprise single-specialty or multi-specialty entities. The single-specialty practice comprises two or more physicians providing patients with a specific type of care (primary care or a particular sub-specialty practice). Multi-specialty group practices offer various types of medical specialty care under one roof.
Group practices enjoy increased financial security and better control of lifestyle. They may provide more employee benefits than are feasible in a solo practice, though often less than what may be available in organizations that employ physicians.
Group practices usually have the resources to manage the administrative tasks associated with running a practice, allowing the physician to focus more time and energy on patient care. They allow for the distribution of clinical care in the hospital at night and on weekends across a more significant number of people leading to more flexible scheduling than in a solo practice.
However, autonomy and decision-making ability decrease, increasing the risk of conflict around significant practice issues. Larger practices may also tend to become more bureaucratic and policy-driven.
Employed Physician
Practice Physicians may be employed within one of several practice models. Some hospitals may purchase and manage existing solo or group practices or may directly hire physicians to work in their inpatient facility or ambulatory clinics. Health-care corporations may own and run clinics with employed physicians.
Some physician-run groups are structured on an employment model. Group practice is structured more like a corporation that employs clinicians instead of pursuing a more traditional partnership model.
Much of the administrative responsibility of running a practice is shifted to the employing entity, allowing the physicians to focus more on practicing medicine. A baseline level of compensation is usually assured, although productivity demands and incentives may be significant. The organization usually has more resources than solo or independent group practices. There is better coverage for clinical responsibilities, more efficient control of lifestyle, more robust support services, and further education and training opportunities.
The downside is that physician autonomy may be substantially diminished relative to other practice models. Scheduling and productivity may be beyond the physician’s control; others may develop policies and procedures. There may be less clinical flexibility due to limitations of referrals and facilities based on the employing organization. Serving on committees or participating in other organizational activities may be likely. Other Types of Medical Practice Some physicians work as independent contractors in a solo or group practice where other physicians or physician groups share the facility and possibly clinical coverage. It may spread the costs of running a practice and may provide some flexibility in clinical scheduling. On the other hand, there is the loss of a degree of decision-making compared to a solo or small group practice.
Locum tenens (literally “place holder”) is an alternative to more permanent employment. Locum tenens positions are temporary (from a few weeks up to a year) offered by practices, hospitals, or healthcare organizations with an unfilled clinical need. The compensation rate is generally higher than what the permanent position would offer. Locum tenens allow physicians to gauge a specific type of practice or location without committing to long-term employment.
Their day may pass in the blink of an eye. They might frequently struggle with balancing their personal and professional roles. They will definitely hear more bad heartbeats than good ones. What makes it all worth the while is the chance that Cardiologists have to turn a bad beat into a good one - there’s no beating that.
Cardiologists must be highly energetic, and they must also practice what they preach. In other words, these doctors need to maintain their physical fitness to set an excellent example for their patients.
Heart cells stop dividing, which means heart cancer is uncommon.
What do Cardiologists do?
A Cardiologist would typically need to:
Accredited
$102,004
