I call myself a \u201cpreventive cardiologist,\u201d but what makes me different from other cardiologists? Many academic centers categorize cardiovascular prevention as a distinct field within cardiology that merits its own label, sub-department, and leadership. Outside the university, however, the distinction may seem, well, academic. But not to me.<\/p>\n
Although I\u2019ve been in practice for only 1 year, I have on many occasions found myself defending against statements such as \u201cEvery cardiologist practices prevention\u201d and \u201cWe all do a lipid panel on our patients.\u201d Some even say, \u201cI order a CRP on every single patient\u201d (not all patients need that test, in my opinion).\u00a0And, of course, a lot of cardiologists use the word \u201cpreventive\u201d to make themselves more marketable.<\/p>\n
So how do I\u00a0justify my title? Well, cardiovascular prevention doesn\u2019t just mean interpreting a lipid panel, ordering C-reactive protein tests, or prescribing statins. It\u2019s much more than individual patient care \u2014 as a field, it is closely linked to population science.<\/p>\n
During my formal education, I spent 2 years earning a master\u2019s degree in cardiovascular epidemiology. After my required years as a clinical cardiology fellow, I spent 2 more doing research in cardiovascular prevention and working with patients in the prevention clinic. I continue to be active in cardiovascular-prevention research and closely follow the related medical literature.<\/p>\n
My patients receive ongoing lifestyle education, including smoking-cessation counseling and exercise-physiology information. I also incorporate evidence-based\u00a0findings from the field of cardiovascular imaging into my risk-stratification efforts. In short, I bring the science of cardiovascular prevention as a specific medical and epidemiologic discipline into my daily care of patients.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s my point of view as a prevention specialist. Do you think that all cardiologists practice prevention by default? Should any cardiologist be allowed to proclaim himself or herself a prevention specialist? Or should we regulate who gets to use that title?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I call myself a \u201cpreventive cardiologist,\u201d but what makes me different from other cardiologists? Many academic centers categorize cardiovascular prevention as a distinct field within cardiology that merits its own label, sub-department, and leadership. Outside the university, however, the distinction may seem, well, academic. But not to me. Although I\u2019ve been in practice for only […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":718,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-prevention"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/718"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1497"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1497\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.nejm.org\/cardioexchange\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}