Sri Sundaram, MD, a cardiologist at South Denver Cardiology, is board certified in cardiology, cardiac electrophysiology and nuclear cardiology. He also serves as chief medical officer of Empower Medical Devices.
Dr. Sundaram has more than 27 years of experience and recently connected with Becker's to share three pieces of advice to cardiologists who are just starting out.
Editor's note: This response has been lightly edited for length and clarity. If you would like to contribute to our next question, please email Paige Haeffele at phaeffele@beckershealthcare.com.
Question: What are three things that all new physicians should know?
Dr. Sri Sundaram:
1. Never stop learning. As a cardiac electrophysiologist, three-quarters of the procedures I do now did not exist when I finished fellowship. You constantly have to adapt and learn to stay ahead of the game. Part of the joy of being a physician is always learning new things. Keep the attitude of always learning. It will benefit you throughout your whole career.
2. Become friends with the administration of your hospital. I've been in situations in which we did not have a good relationship with the hospital administration and others where we do. You will get so much more done when you have a cordial relationship with your hospital administrators. You will work together to improve your hospital. Getting to know your hospital administrators as people and working together with them will have a much bigger long-term impact than an adversarial relationship.
3. Learn the business side of medicine. In a heavily dependent technological field such as cardiac electrophysiology, you have to be able to understand the finances of medicine. You don't necessarily need a master's degree, you just need to pay attention and ask a lot of questions. To get the latest, greatest tools for procedures, you have to be able to understand the finances from industry perspective, hospital perspective, third-party payers and physicians.