A cardiologist or medical cardiologist is a doctor who specializes in the anatomy, pathology, diagnosis and treatment of diseases affecting the heart. The term also refers to physicians qualified by other specialties to provide care for these conditions and is often used broadly to include all such specialists in that field.
Specialized cardiology includes the following:
Medical cardiologists are commonly specialized in one or more of these areas. The number of specialist medical cardiologists in New Jersey varies greatly throughout the world; for example, Australia has about 20 specialists for every 10,000 patients, compared with the United States where there are 120 specialists per 100,000 people.
Treatment should be tailored to each individual patient’s needs. Treatment may include medication and surgery in certain cases. Risk stratification is based upon the patient’s medical condition and risk factors for heart disease such as age, gender, and family history.
Training and qualifications
In order to be certified as a cardiologist, candidates for specialist training in the United States must obtain the Committee on Accreditation of Cardiologists (CAC) certification. The CAC is a board under the American Board of Medical Specialties. There are about 1,100 members of the CAC and 662 of them are board certified cardiologists in North America.
In order to be certified as a general practitioner (GP), one must first obtain the Postgraduate Certificate in General Practice and then go through a period of training known as Conversion Training. This allows the GP to practice medicine according to the General Medical Council’s requirements since they have been accredited by them.
There are approximately 200,000 GPs in the UK. A GP who wishes to practice in other countries must have a license from the General Medical Council before they can practice outside of their own country.
Specialized cardiology is a majority of board-certified cardiologists in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom
Specialists in cardiac surgery and interventional cardiology tend to be more common in the United States.
Some common specialties include:
The technology that has been developed within the Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory (CCL) can be applied to many areas of medicine where atrial fibrillation or ventricular arrhythmias may present a risk. This can apply to patients who have both atrial fibrillation and heart failure or patients with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.