For me, being a medical doctor and especially a cardiologist has been an extremely fulfilling, meaningful and exciting career. I am fortunate to be one who looks forward to work each day. My experiences as a doctor include those with joy and satisfaction when my patients cheat death. #readmore
As a cardiologist, many of my patients present with life-threatening heart conditions, the commonest being heart attacks. I am also an interventional cardiologist, meaning I perform coronary angiograms, angioplasty and stenting.
Some heart attack patients require emergency angioplasty and stenting to save their lives. It is always satisfying to treat these patients who are very ill with severe chest pain, and after unblocking their artery with a stent, they are immediately relieved of their chest pain and become more stable.
I had a patient who had 2 arteries blocked 100% at the same time and I performed emergency stenting on both arteries. He was very ill with low blood pressure and I had to insert a balloon pump to keep his blood pressure up. Initially I was very concerned that he could not survive this massive heart attack but thankfully he did. More than 1 year after the heart attack, he is still alive and back to normal life. These experiences definitely make my job very fulfilling.
Of course, there are also experiences that are painful, when some patients do not survive despite everything that medical advancements can do. I had another patient who suffered a massive heart attack and unfortunately, he was stuck on board a ship when it happened. By the time he got to the hospital, it had been more than 24 hours. Despite my efforts at successfully unblocking his heart artery, more than 2/3 of his heart had been damaged. His only hope was for a left ventricular assist device or a mechanical heart, and eventual heart transplant. However this unfortunate patient also developed severe infection, bleeding, and an eventual stroke, making it futile to further fix his heart. It is heart-wrenching to see patients deteriorate despite fighting to save his life for weeks.