Cardiology
Cardiology is the branch of medicine that deals with illnesses of the heart and blood vessels. A Cardiologist is a physician who focuses in the field of cardiology. As a physician, a cardiologist is obliged to train as a doctor before taking sophisticated training to become a cardiologist. The field of cardiology is separated in fields consisting of congenital heart defects, heart failure, valvular heart illness, and electro-physiology.
How to become a Cardiologist
Becoming a cardiologist requires many years of rigorous study. A period of approximately nine years in addition to the six needed to become a doctor of general medicine. Cardiologists need to be well-informed about the cardiovascular system, cardiovascular metabolism, cardiovascular physiology, cardiovascular anatomy, molecular biology of the cardiovascular system, and cardiovascular pharmacology.
They need to carefully understand to achieve and interpret specialised tests and procedures such as cardiac catheterisation (a method that produces pictures of the coronary arteries that provide blood to the heart and reveal if one or more of the arteries is moderately or absolutely blocked).
Cardiologists can study even more, frequently up to two years, to enter a subspecialty area of cardiology.
The areas offered include:
- Interventional Cardiology, which deals in the treatment of structural heart diseases.
- Electrophysiology, which deals particularly of the study of electrical activity in the heart.
- Echocardiography, which deals in the use of ultrasound to obtain a structural picture of the heart.
- Nuclear Cardiology, which deals in evaluate heart disease using a small amount of radioactive substance.
Nature of the work
Cardiologists are doctors certified to diagnose, treat and manage disorders of the cardiovascular system with symptoms such as high blood pressure, shortness of breath, chest pains, palpitations or dizziness. They can make a common test with an electrocardiogram. An EKG is a process electrical from heart contractions and it copies a graph for the cardiologists to review. These tests can identify lots of problems.
Also Cardiologists give their patients advice to avoid heart disease. Some the advice will possibly include exercising and eating right.
Note:
Cardiologists don't make surgery, thoracic surgeons do. Lots of these surgeons ask and get advice from cardiologists.
Salary
The annual salary for a cardiologist goes from $120,000 to $290,000
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