Interventional Cardiology Fellow Has Invaluable Experience In Mason City

July 10, 2023

According to Mostafa Ghanim, MD, an Interventional Cardiology Fellow at the MercyOne North Iowa Heart & Vascular Center at the Mason City Clinic, has had the great opportunity to “participate in a wide range of cardio-vascular interventions with diverse populations” that he would not have had in a larger and more competitive market. Hear more about his experience in Mason City, and the value of it to him, in this video:

More About MercyOne North Iowa Heart & Vascular Center Cardiovascular Disease Fellowship Program

Our Cardiovascular Disease Fellowship Program, which was launched and certified in 2002, is affiliated with the MercyOne North Iowa Heart & Vascular Center, a center of excellence for cardiologists, and numerous other medical specialists.

The program is a three-year program accredited for a total of nine cardiology fellows by the National Residency Review Committee of the ACGME. The program trains in all disciplines recommended by the American College of Cardiology COCATS, thereby allowing the fellow to fulfill the requirements of level II COCATS training in the areas that they wish to emphasize.

Our fellowship program provides a clinically rigorous training experience in general cardiology, as well as advanced training in clinical cardiology subspecialties with a strong pathology and procedural number base. The program can provide the trainee with the basic and clinical knowledge, procedural skills, clinical judgment, professionalism and interpersonal skills, and abilities necessary to continue to hone these skills through the course of a long career. Fellowship training will prepare fellows to function not only as outstanding cardiologists, but also as sub-specialists.

Our goal is to graduate outstanding clinical cardiologists who focus on the greater good of community health with cardiology outreach to the rural communities of North Iowa and Southern Minnesota.

Transcript

Mostafa Ghanim:

My name is Mostafa Ghanim. I’m the interventional cardiology fellow in MercyOne North Iowa. I have actually very close family members who was like role models for me, and they were physicians and I saw how they impact their surrounding people and everyone, so that’s how I decided to go into medical school. I was born and raised in Cairo, Egypt, and I did my medical school there as well in Cairo University. And afterwards I decided to pursue further post-graduate training in the US.

So, I moved to Boston, which was my first step where I did my internal medicine training for three years. And after that I knew I wanted to do cardiovascular medicine, so I moved here to Iowa to pursue cardiovascular training. I have to say cardiology fellowship is pretty competitive.

However, coming here has a lot of advantages. Being the only tertiary center in North Iowa with a lot of catchment area of referrals from a lot of hospitals around us, give us a chance to see a lot of diverse cardiovascular diseases and have to deal with a lot of more interventions that I wouldn’t do in a more competitive market somewhere else.

So, for example, here we do a lot of cardiovascular coronary artery interventions, peripheral artery interventions. We also do some structural procedures like transcatheter aortic valve replacement plus for our heart failure population, we recently have been placing those sensors in pulmonary artery, which give us more information that help us keeping them outside the hospital and improve their quality of life.

So first, my first exposure to the cath lab was during my general cardiology fellowship and I noticed first of all how busy our cath lab is. And I noticed how all the interventional attendings are very keen about education and having a priority for their interventional fellow to learn as much as they can during their fellowship training. And that’s one of the most important reasons I decided to pursue further training in the field.

If you’re interested in community medicine, seeing pathology and seeing patients and diverse population with a lot of cardiovascular disease and having a hands-on skills in a busy place, I think Mason City offer all of that, especially here in our cath lab.

The most rewarding part of my job is when I see someone who’s come suffering with maybe a heart attack, coming to the emergency department and being able to emergently take him to the cath lab and do some kind of intervention to relieve this pain and protect him from having a life-threatening heart attack. Seeing patients afterward and their family and seeing how they are appreciative is the most rewarding part of my job.