As the oldest of three children in our family of five, my mother fostered a sense of caring for and protecting my younger siblings in me which later grew deeper roots to turn into a passion for caring and healing others. My father, himself a physician, has mentored me to this date and the one quote that I always remember from him is: “do your job well and take care of your patients, don’t worry about anything else, it will all be fine”. He was my role model and inspiration to go to medical school. My medical school years were similar to most others, filled with long hours of study and lab work but the science of physiology and how internal organs functioned always intrigued me and ultimately led me to internal medicine as a specialty.
It was during one of those long ICU call nights in the mid-1990s in Michigan State University that cardiology became my passion and subspecialty goal. I was taking care of a 40 year old man with a massive heart attack whose heart was barely beating and we had to do multiple rounds of CPR to keep him alive until he got a procedure called coronary angioplasty, which was not the standard of care at the time but was the much need water on fire and enabled him to see his family again.
I then pursued this passion through four years of training and research at the University of Arkansas followed by another 6 years of academic work as assistant professor, publishing multiple papers and training other passionate young physicians in cardiology. The passion for learning drew me one more time to more training and this time, I decided to specialize in interventional cardiology and accepted a training position at Indiana University, Krannert institute of cardiology in 2007 during which I learned the techniques for performing angioplasty of the vessels in the heart and extremities.
I returned to the University of Arkansas as faculty in interventional cardiology in 2008 which was mostly a supervisory role and as much as I enjoyed my academic career, it was lacking the breadth of human interaction and patient care that was deep in my DNA.
When my wife, herself a physician, accepted a position at the university of Colorado Anschutz medical Center, I decided to start a private practice and pursue my creed of providing compassionate, effective and cost efficient cardiac care for the community of Brighton, Colorado. Our family of four then moved to Denver in 2009 and I have enjoyed a Colorado life along with my wife and two sons skiing, hiking and cycling over the past 10 years.
With the changes in health care and conglomeration of hospitals into big health system, I noticed that I was getting away from my principals especially putting patients first given the fact that I had to follow numerous other mandates of these systems. I was able to find other like-minded physicians and thus the “Advanced Heart and Vein center” was born in 2019.
It operates on simple principals of integrity, doing the best for the patient, and compassionate care. I always tell my patients that as proceduralist and interventional cardiologist my goal is the best result for them and simply put: “I can either fix the problem myself or will find the most suited physician who can do it”.
I believe that we can deliver on this promise because as an independent group, we are not obligated to refer within any particular group in health systems and thus can choose the best provider for any specific cardiovascular condition that our patients may have. Therefore, we have established a network of interventional cardiologists, endovascular specialists, cardiac and vascular surgeons and other specialties and subspecialties to suit the needs of our patients in providing cutting edge cardiovascular care in a patient-friendly environment.
I am a strong proponent of preventive care as well and whether you have been diagnosed with any cardiovascular condition or just checking to see if you are at risk, I would be more than happy to care for you.