Cardiologist talks about job, training

A pipe repair person and doctor are two totally different careers, but for one Eunice interventional cardiologist, the jobs are one in the same.
Dr. Kian Ehsan said, “I call myself a plumber. I go in there, and I open up the pipes. I get the blood flowing, get the heartbeat where it needs to be. My job is to prevent people from having heart attacks and strokes and fix irregular heartbeats and leaky valves. I go in there with the Roto-Rooter and open up the pipes.”
Ehsan was the guest speaker at Wednesday’s Rotary, and the doctor told the crowd about the education and training he received on the road to becoming an interventional cardiologist.
The doctor’s family moved from Iran to Vancouver, British Columbia, when he was 11 years old, and when Ehsan was in his late teens, his father suffered a heart attack.
“What made me want to become a physician?” Ehsan asked. ‘My dad had a heart attack and had to have emergency bypass surgery. Seeing him with all the tubes coming out of his mouth, it made me uneasy.
“Then they had to open him back up because one of the pipes they had rerouted during his surgery was leaking. It was a very horrifying experience for me and my family. That changed my life right here.”
Ehsan decided then to attend college to become a physician, and he eventually chose to specialize in interventional cardiology. Ehsan completed 15 years of training and education to become an interventional cardiologist. In the those years, the doctor completed four years of undergraduate education, four years of medical school, three years of internal medicine education, three years of cardiology education and one year of interventional cardiology education.
The doctor said in year one and two of medical school, students learn basic sciences, and in year three, they learn about care rotation and practices like internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology and surgery. The fourth year is an elective year in which students do training for the field they plan to specialize in as their career. Ehsan recalled the long exams he took while receiving his education.
Ehsan received training at University Hospital in New Orleans, and he spoke about the morning reports students gave about their shifts at the hospital.
“In the morning, we would sit with admitting team and discuss cases,” he said “We would sit in a classroom, present our case to the whole staff — students, physicians, attendings — and we would discuss the cases that happened overnight.
“You were being questioned in front of your colleagues about how much you knew. It was very nerve wracking. The attending (physician) at time was physician for the (New Orleans) Saints. If the Saints lost the game, it was a really bad Monday morning. We would always pray, ‘Please let the Saints win.’’ 
Ehsan showed the crowd images of stints and blocked blood vessels and a person’s heartbeat chart.
“I had a patient with ulcers on his feet that would not heal,” Ehsan said. “They would not heal because there was not enough blood getting to his feet.”
He said, “If a patient’s heart is only beating 30 beats per minute, that is very slow. If that were me or you, we would be short of breath or tired. In that case, we would put a pacemaker put in.” 
These days, Ehsan works most of the time in Eunice, and he also does work at three other hospitals in the region.
“My wife said I work too much, but I love what I do,” he said.
Ehsan added, “I treat patients like you would your mother and father. I really mean that.”