Dual-trained physicians are rare, but they add valuable insight for patient care and system operations, Mohammed Imran Aslam, MD, director of acute mechanical circulatory support and director of Robert Kung Interventional Heart Failure Clinical and Research Fellowship Program at Boston-based Tufts Medical Center, said in an upcoming episode of Becker’s “Cardiology & Heart Surgery Podcast.”
Dr. Aslam is dual-certified in interventional cardiology and advanced heart failure transplant cardiology — qualifications that help him not just perform procedures, but fully understand how the patient is being cared for and the patient’s endpoint, such as recovery or heart transplant.
“Knowing where the patient comes from, where they are, how they’re being cared for and where they need to go is a great advantage when you’re a proceduralist,” he said.
Patients also see an advantage by being able to build a stronger relationship with their physician.
“I’m the doctor who’s seeing that patient every morning, coming by and rounding on them, and then saying, ‘OK, I’ll see you this afternoon when I do this procedure,'” he said. “When the patient comes to the procedural suite, it’s a comfort, because they’re already connected with the physician doing the procedure.”
Dual training also allows physicians to speak the languages of both subspecialties and bridge the gap between them, Dr. Aslam said. In the cath lab, that means pairing procedural skill with an advanced heart failure physician’s training in how to interpret and apply complex hemodynamics.
Though the advantages far outweigh the disadvantages, there are challenges, Dr. Aslam said.
“With any dual training, people can be a little wary of those who train across two areas,” he said. “Whenever you’re doing dual training, it can be difficult for institutions or hospitals to understand how best to utilize or deploy you, because it’s not commonplace. It can be a challenge to find where you fit in a particular division and how they see you: how much time you’d spend in each subspecialty, how that fits with what you want to do and why you decided to do the dual training to begin with, and how that fits with what the institution needs.”
Dr. Aslam said there needs to be better understanding and consensus on how best to use dual-trained physicians so they can utilize both of their subspecialty skills to the fullest.
Before dual-trained physicians can take full advantage of their training, the value they add to the institution and how best to deploy them both need to be clear, he said.
Hospitals should discuss with division leaders and stakeholders how to formally integrate dual-trained physicians rather than “pigeonhole” them into one subspecialty, Dr. Aslam said.
“That ends up wasting that person’s training, because they trained to do something else and aren’t being utilized to do it,” he said.
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