The way Dr. Stephen Sloan sees it, there are two types of interventional cardiologists practicing today: the "plumbers" and the "electricians." This 40-year-old cardiologist and electro-physiologist - who practices at Central Bucks Cardiology and Doylestown Hospital - is one of the top "heart electricians" in Bucks County.
How did you decide to become a cardiologist?
During my internship at Tufts University, we treated a woman with an acute coronary syndrome. We could not control her chest pain with medications. Then she underwent a balloon angioplasty, and the result was dramatic. The profound impact that the procedure had on my patient's life drew me to cardiology.
How do you explain your subspecialty - in lay terms?
Think of the heart as a machine with different parts. The plumbers work on the pipes (blood vessels). The electricians work on the wiring that controls the heart's rhythm. If the rhythm is too slow, we can rewire the heart by implanting a pacemaker. To slow down a fast heartbeat, we can eradicate the faulty circuit in the heart muscle using radio frequency ablation (RFA). For life-threatening heart rhythms, we implant defibrillators.
What is new in the field of electrocardiology?
One advance is the biventricular pacemaker which strengthens the heartbeat. Another is the implantable defibrillator, which is 99 percent effective in stopping sudden accelerations in heart rhythm, increasing patient survival rates by 25-30 percent. Some patients receive a combined device, a biventricular pacemaker/defibrillator.
Dr. Sloan is a Maryland native and the son of a pediatrician. He studied at the University of Pennsylvania, Ohio State University Medical School and Tufts University's New England Medical Center. He practiced and taught at Jefferson Medical College.
