Kathleen M. Heintz, DO ’92, FACC

Assistant Professor of Medicine, Division of Cardiovascular Disease, Cooper University Health Care, Camden, New Jersey

[as told to Janice Fisher]

“I am fortunate enough to love what I do every day. I work in a tertiary care facility in an urban setting, with a wide variety of patients. I take care of both inpatients and outpatients, with cardiac disease, including heart attack, arrhythmias, heart bypass and heart valve surgery. I get to piece together the puzzle and figure out the next steps. . . The variety is great. Physicians who get burned out may be in specialties where they don’t develop a long-term relationship with their patients and families. Everything aside—trying to do the computer work at the end of the day, trying to make sure someone is taking care of the billing—the most important thing is still my doctor-patient relationship. It’s extremely rewarding work, because you can make a difference in a person’s life. If you can build that trust, there’s probably nothing better in medicine. . . . When I started in cardiology more than 20 years ago, women were underrepresented in cardiovascular clinical trials, with much less evidence-based medicine for women. We have more research on women and coronary disease. We also now see more women than men enrolled in medical school. Women are trickling up. We are beginning to see more women as chiefs and deans. In the 21 years that I have been practicing medicine, I’ve seen a sizeable shift. . . . Medicine has changed for men and women alike. We are not your father’s doctors! We must embrace the changes in medicine, continue to learn and mentor our next generation of physicians.”

• Health Care on a Small Scale: One Story at a Time