Cardiologists specialize in diseases of the heart that don’t require surgery. Hospitals call on cardiologists in the management of people with heart attacks and other severe forms of disabling heart disease.
Cardiologists have not missed the opportunity to involve themselves in expensive procedural work. To some extent they have entered into competition with cardiac surgeons. Instead of referring patients for bypass surgery, cardiologists now thread balloon catheters all the way from the groin of people with hardening of the arteries to their obstructed coronary arteries. Once the catheter reaches the site of a blockage the balloon is blown up, relieving the obstruction.
In their pursuit of excitement and remuneration many cardiologists forget that studies now demonstrate medical means alone can reverse the plaque of atherosclerosis. Having crossed the line between the medical and procedural specialties, cardiologists seem little disposed to return to less traumatic and less remunerative therapies.
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