Cardiology

Cardiology is the medical treatment of diseases of the heart and parts of the circulatory system. Cardiologists are the doctors who specialize in diagnosing and treating these conditions.

Find a Doctor Get Directions Call Consult-A-Nurse®: (844) 706-8773

Heart and Vascular Institute in Miami

As part of the largest cardiac network in South Florida, HCA Florida Kendall Hospital's Heart and Vascular Institute offers a full-service heart care program.

We help you manage and treat all types of heart diseases and conditions — offering everything from screening to minimally invasive treatments and interventional procedures. Our team of experienced cardiologists, cardiothoracic surgeons, intensivists, interventional radiologists, pulmonologists and internists works closely together. This team provides you with exceptional, compassionate and collaborative care.

Is your heart healthy?

Understanding your heart health is critical to getting the care you need. We offer a health risk assessment to help get you started.

Take Our Heart Health Risk Assessment

Heart and vascular conditions we treat

Our skilled heart and vascular specialists treat a wide range of conditions related to cardiovascular disease, including but not limited to:

Arrhythmias, including atrial fibrillation (AFib) and bradycardia
Carotid stenosis
Cerebral aneurysm
Chest pain (angina)
Congestive heart failure

Coronary artery disease
Heart attack
Hypertension (high blood pressure)
Peripheral vascular disease
Stroke

Heart services we provide

We use the latest technology and techniques to improve your heart health.

Heart screening and imaging

Our cardiologists perform cardiac testing and imaging to see how your heart is performing as well as to diagnose a heart problem or condition.

Some of the heart diagnostic services and procedures we offer include:

Coronary calcium scans
Echocardiograms, including 3D echocardiography
Electrocardiograms (EKGs or ECGs)
Nuclear cardiology procedures
Peripheral vascular diagnostics
Stress tests
Transesophageal echocardiograms (TEEs)

Cardiac catheterization

Cardiac catheterization is a medical subspecialty dedicated to using minimally invasive techniques with imaging guidance. Catheterization procedures allow physicians to both diagnose and treat a variety of diseases of the heart and blood vessels.

Our Cardiovascular Laboratory (CVL) is equipped with state-of-the-art, modern technology. It is staffed by a team of experienced interventional cardiologists, cardiovascular surgeons, trained registered nurses and cardiovascular technologists.

The CVL is available 24 hours a day to help us diagnose and treat you as quickly as we can.

What a heart catheterization is

During a heart catheterization, a thin, flexible tube (catheter) is threaded through your blood vessels and into your heart.

From a diagnostic standpoint, your cardiologist may use a heart catheterization to:

Locate any narrowed or clogged arteries in the heart
Measure blood pressure within the heart
See how well the heart valves and heart chambers are working
Check for heart defects
Evaluate an enlarged heart
Decide on a treatment plan

From a treatment standpoint, cardiac catheterization — which is not surgery — can be used to perform procedures such as:

Atherectomy
Cardiac ablation
Carotid stenting
Cerebral angiogram
Cerebral embolization
Coronary and peripheral angiogram, angioplasty and stenting
Heart biopsy
Pacemaker and automated implantable cardioverter defibrillator (AICD) placement

These catheter-based interventions provide many benefits compared to traditional surgical approaches. Some of these benefits include shorter hospital stays, reduced recovery times, smaller incisions and less postoperative scarring.

Specialized cardiothoracic surgery

The highly trained cardiothoracic surgeons at our hospital's heart center offer an extensive range of open-heart surgeries. These may be used to treat a number of cardiac conditions resulting from heart diseases, congenital heart defects, valve diseases and aortic aneurysms.

Cardiovascular surgeries we offer include:

Coronary artery bypass grafting (CABG)
Endoscopic vein harvesting
Maze procedures for AFib or atrial flutter
Transmyocardial revascularization (TMR)
Valve repair and replacement

Heart arrhythmia treatment

Our Electrophysiology Laboratory (EP Lab) specializes in the management and treatment of heart rhythm disorders. These heart arrhythmias occur when your heart beats too quickly, too slowly or irregularly.

Along with comprehensive electrophysiology studies, we can perform the following procedures in our EP Lab for arrhythmias:

AFib ablations
Atrioventricular (AV) node ablations
Cardiac device implantations, including loop recorders, pacemakers and implantable cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs)
Cardioversions

Emergency heart attack treatment

Every minute is critical when you experience a heart attack. ST-elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI) is a severe type of heart attack in which a clot blocks blood flow to the heart.

Because we are committed to providing you with the most rapid emergency treatment possible when you have a heart attack, we've established a "Code STEMI" program. In this program, a specially trained cardiac care team quickly assembles and is ready to treat you and quickly perform any interventional procedures you need.

Our Code STEMI protocols, together with other procedures we have instituted, enable our team to reduce our "door-to-balloon" time (the time it takes to treat you once you arrive).

Heart attack symptoms

If you are experiencing any of the below symptoms, call 911 immediately:

Breaking out into a cold sweat or feeling clammy
Pain that radiates to your neck, shoulders or arms
Pressure, pain or squeezing in your chest
Shortness of breath
Sudden lightheadedness or fainting
Unexplained nausea or anxiety

Primary Stroke Center

Stroke is another serious medical condition. It is often the result of a vascular issue, such as when an artery's blood flow becomes blocked. It requires immediate medical care.

As a Joint Commission-certified Primary Stroke Center, we can help you get the right diagnosis and treatment when this occurs. We are equipped to provide fast, effective stroke treatment that results in optimal outcomes.

Dr. Jose Martel discusses why he chose cardiology

Cardiology is one of those fields in medicine where it's a very rapidly advancing field. I was very attracted to cardiology by the fact that there's new studies- new data coming on technology it's really driving the field in particular my part of cardiology, electro-physiology.