Can You Do Cardiology Without Taking Call?

[Llenroc]

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Is it possible to be a practicing Cardiologist who does not take overnight call? Can you focus only on clinical cardiology?

 

[viostorm]

Is it possible to be a practicing Cardiologist who does not take overnight call? Can you focus only on clinical cardiology?

I think this was already addressed in another thread and if I remember the consensus was ....

Is it possible for your patients not to have heart problems from 5pm -> 8am?

I suspect you could find a Critical Care job where you took care of heart patients sort of as a hospitalist ... but I don't know why you would go through all the training. I guess you could pay someone to take call for you.

 

[P Diddy]

Is it possible to be a practicing Cardiologist who does not take overnight call? Can you focus only on clinical cardiology?

yes. there are some hospitals that employ cardiologists as hospitalists. they admit patients with primarily cardiology problems, perform echos and stress tests and transfer patients to interventional centers if they need catheterization. at the hospital where i moonlight they take in home call and I've never called them in, but I have asked them for advice or to triage pts to another hospital.

p diddy

 

[DrWBD]

You can do echo or nuclear/stress testing.
The pay will likely be lower, but the call schedule will likely be less (or nonexistent)

 

[Firebird]

Other than admitting the pt, what does a cardiologist do when one of their pts presents to the ED? I would think that if the person was having a heart attack, the ED folks would manage that unless they needed cathed. At which point, the Interventionalist would be called, rather than the pt's cardiologist. I've asked this question a couple times, and never really got an answer.

 

[P Diddy]

Other than admitting the pt, what does a cardiologist do when one of their pts presents to the ED? I would think that if the person was having a heart attack, the ED folks would manage that unless they needed cathed. At which point, the Interventionalist would be called, rather than the pt's cardiologist. I've asked this question a couple times, and never really got an answer.

You're giving too much credit to the ED.

In private practice, cardiologists often come to the ED to evaluate their patients with MI, especially those with complicated histories or unstable presentations. Hospitalists also admit and manage NSTEMI patients who are then followed by cardiologists on a consult basis.

In the academic setting, either the housestaff or the cardiology fellow treats/admits the patient from the ED with the attending seeing the patient after admission, usually the next day. Rarely have I seen the ED anticoagulate at my institution or perform management beyond the 'MONA' protocol.

MI obviously isn't the only problem cardiologists confront in the ED. Cardiologists are often asked to manage arrhythmias, perform echocardiograms and manage heart failure, among other tasks. It is true that many of these tasks may be performed on a consultative basis, especially in academia. Some of these questions can also be answered via phone/fax.

All of this is just a long way of saying that cardiologists are valued and necessary commodities in the ED - just bring a cardiology fellow badge into a busy ED and you'll see what I mean. if you ever get out...

p diddy

 

[Firebird]

Thanks for the information. This is similar as to what someone else told me, but more detailed and thorough. The same person told me that this type of call is not particularly frequent, but occurs enough to be aggrevating. I think the point was that diagnostic cardiology is not a lifestyle specialty, but it's still easy enough to have a family, especially if they're understanding. Anyone agree or disagree?