HJBR Jul/Aug 2019

Healthcare Journal of baton rouge I  JUL / AUG 2019 15 Now, why cardiology specifically? I was interested in somany parts of medicine, but I decided to go into internal medicine. I liked the idea of diagnosing and treating prob- lems, and I really became intrigued with electrocardiograms and echocardiograms, and what they could tell us about patients who were feeling poorly. That’s really what got me interested initially in the field of cardiology. But I was lucky enough, purely by chance, to do my cardiology fellowship at one of the first hospitals in America to actually have access to a brand new tech- nology called percutaneous transluminal angioplasty, or treatment of blocked arter- ies using a balloon. That made me one of the first ten angioplasty fellows in the united states by default. Really it was a circuitous and just lucky route for me, but I was then tremendously impressed by the fact that often patients with life threatening debil- itating problems could come in and in an instant, obtain relief and improvement in their situation. At that moment, I knew I wanted to be an interventional cardiologist and that was how I wanted to spendmy life. I was hooked on the field. Since then, I have devoted my effort to improving interven- tional care, blocked arteries, and other prob- lems people have via catheters. That’s really become my main focus in life. “…I really became intrigued with electrocardiograms and echocardi- ograms, and what they could tell us about patients who were feeling poorly. That’s really what got me interested initially in the field of cardiology.” Editor  Coming from Bourg, Louisiana and building a practice with 20 locations, 65 cardiologists, and 800 team members is an impressive feat. Can you tell us the growth story? Walker  We were never really aimed at growth. Our focus has always been to pro- vide the best care we could give to patients. Growthwas secondary to that as we became one of the first in the United States to have access to stents and forms of atherectomy. We were helping to advance the entire field of limb salvage and help people to were oth- erwise going to lose their limbs. It became very obvious that what we were doing was important; people were seeing improved outcomes, lessened cost, lessened mortal- ity, and with that, there was an interest by many hospitals around our state initially, and then throughout the country by out- side physicians wanting to become part of that. In addition, we realized that the larger we could become, the more apt we were to have access to all the new tools, because whenever companies are looking to per- form research, they want to have access to large patient units with trained physi- cians. I really think our growth came about because of our patient focus. We were sim- ply trying to provide better care that was