Doctor's Training Affects Defibrillator Implant Results
TUESDAY, April 21 (HealthDay News) -- Chances are you've never heard of electrophysiology, but it's a medical subspecialty you should know about if you are one of the 100,000 or so Americans who will have a heart defibrillator implanted this year.
A defibrillator delivers a shock when needed to keep an aberrant heart beating regularly. And the incidence of in-hospital complications is significantly lower when the implant is done by an electrophysiologist rather than an ordinary cardiologist, a thoracic surgeon or a different sort of specialist, according to a study in the April 22/29 edition of the Journal of the American Medical Association.
"Electrophysiology is a subspecialty within cardiology," explained study author Dr. Jeptha P. Curtis, an assistant professor of medicine at the Yale University School of Medicine's section of cardiovascular medicine. "You have to undergo two years of advanced training on the electrical activity of the heart to be eligible for board certification."
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