What is an Interventional Cardiologist?

[Arijos0222]

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Since IC's are taking over many CT procedures with a minimally invasive approach, is this a popular field?

Are Interventional Cardiologists "Surgeons"? Where do they perform their procedures? Scrubbing in an OR? 😕

 

[mmmcdowe]

http://azdailysun.com/lifestyles/he...cle_dcaf2ce0-807f-576e-934b-ebc4d72b5567.html

They have "ORs" yes, called suites, though they tend to be designed a bit different because of the need for intraoperative imaging.

 

[Winged Scapula]

Without getting into turf battles or arguments about what constitutes a surgeon, interventional cardiologists are not considered surgeons.

They have not done surgical training or a surgical residency. They would be more appropriately referred to as interventionalists or proceduralists.
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Doing procedures does not make one a surgeon. For other examples of proceduralists, see gastroenterology, interventional radiology, pain management, etc.

 

[mimelim]

From a PM that I wrote someone about IC vs. VC:

A quick thing about Interventional Cards (IC) vs. VS. There are a couple of big differences that separate the two. First, training, IC is 3 years of IM residency, 3 years cards fellowship, 1 year interventional fellowship. VS is either 5 years of residency or 5 years gen surg + 2 years fellowship. Roughly equivalent. The difference is really medicine vs. surgery. To be blunt, I could not survive an IM residency. For ME they are just too slow. Too much fixation on small details, too much endless rounding.

I am on interventional cards right now as an IVS resident (we do about 4 months of IC). We start rounding at 10am (I get to the hospital about 7am) and round until 3pm on a good day and 7pm on a bad day. Mixed in are maybe 3-4 cardiac caths. By definition the cases IC do are the same. The vast majority only do heart caths. They are extremely good at them, but the territory while exceptionally important is limited. They are a procedural medical specialty. But MEDICAL. It is more a mindset than anything.

This is contrast to a VS service. I was on one of ours for 2 months in July/August. We start to round at 6am, (I arrive at hospital at 5am) so that we can start operating at 7:30am. Operate until cases are done ~3-6pm. Take care of things on the floor in between cases or after things are done. I would say on average we see twice as many patients as a typical medical team will in about half the time. The medical care is good, but there isn't a focus on preventative care, medical optimization, and tracking down unrelated issues, so things simply go faster. That is what I like, but it is NOT for everyone. It is a harder schedule, but it is much faster paced and if you enjoy it, it will go a heck of a lot faster than a shorter day of medical rounds.

In short, interventional cardiologists are at their core medicine based, not surgical. They have 1 year of procedure training. Comparatively, a surgeon will have 5-7.

 

[docB]

And just to further clarify a few things:

Interventional Cardiologists are internists (doctors who have completed a residency in internal medicine) who have done fellowships in cardiology and interventional cardiology.

They do their procedures in a special area of the hospital called the "Cath Lab." The vast majority of their procedures are cardiac catheterizations thus the name. These cath lab suites are set up to do catheterizations, not more invasive surgical procedures.

They are not considered surgeons by the rest of the medical community. That is not a value judgment. If your patient has an appendicitis you need a surgeon. If they are having a heart attack they need a cardiologist.

 

[Winged Scapula]

They are not considered surgeons by the rest of the medical community. That is not a value judgment. If your patient has an appendicitis you need a surgeon. If they are having a heart attack they need a cardiologist.

Thank you especially for this paragraph. Surgeons are sometimes criticized when stating that other physicians doing procedures does not make for a surgeon (we had a lengthy thread in the surgery forum about that). It is not a value judgement but just statement of fact.

An interventional cardiologist is no more a surgeon than I am a cardiologist just because I can read an EKG and have put in a pacemaker before.