Welcome, everyone to the Becker's Healthcare podcast series.
I'm Ryan Mohammed Becker's Healthcare. I'm thrilled to have with me today Dr.
Gold Delani from the Morris Children's Hospital. Dr.
So nice to talk with you today. How are you?
Thank you for having me. I appreciate the opportunity to be here.
Yeah, of course. Whoa, to begin,
would you mind please introducing yourself and telling us a bit about your
background?
Sure. My name's Gal Dani.
I'm the chief of pediatric cardiology at the Morris Children's Hospital in
Orlando, and we run a statewide, uh,
cardiac program across the state of Florida, uh, for, uh, pediatric patients,
uh, from the womb all the way up to early adulthood.
Wonderful. Thank you so much.
And to begin with the real podcast questions for today,
the first thing I want to ask you is what are the top three biggest issues in
cardiology today?
I, I think when you look at, uh,
cardiac centers across the country coming off of covid,
I think staffing still remains a major, uh,
challenge for cardiovascular programs, whether that's nursing, staffing,
echos, sonographer, staffing, or physician, uh, staffing. I,
I think staffing still remains an issue here in the United States.
A as you look to build, uh, cardiac programs, uh,
up and continue to grow and expand them, um,
in geographical regions across the United States. Uh, number two,
I think technology plays a crucial role in cardiology,
whether that's diagnostic imaging with echocardiograms, cts,
or MRIs. I think there's a lot of innovations, uh, with that.
I know here at Nemours we're very excited, uh, to have, uh,
a fantastic 3D imaging program, especially, uh, we just added,
uh, fetal 3D imaging. So for mothers who are pregnant,
if their child has congenital heart disease,
we can do a full 3D model of that form of congenital heart disease to be able to
educate mom prior to, uh, her baby having a delivery. Uh, with that,
a and I think the third is the revolution of genetics in cardiovascular disease.
Um, a as you look at personalized medicine and gene therapies,
I think the future looks very bright for many forms of cardiovascular disease
that affect children and young adults.
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for that insight. And for you,
how do you see healthcare evolving over the next 18 month,
18 months or so?
Yeah, I hope as, uh, you know, hospitals and health systems, uh,
come out of covid, uh, that staffing issues, financial issues, uh,
will settle and, uh, from a cardiovascular standpoint,
we can really focus back on our primary populations of children and adults
for primary prevention.
So how can we prevent cardiovascular disease before it really starts, you know,
in terms of eating a healthy diet, avoiding smoking, watching our cholesterol,
um, because, uh, one out of three of us, uh,
will have some form of cardiovascular disease that kills us over our lifetime.
So, um, getting back to, um,
our nutrition and our diet and our exercise, I,
I think is very important for everyone across the country, uh,
as you look at your cardiovascular programs.
Yeah, I absolutely completely agree with you, um, for that.
And before I let you go, doctor,
the last thing I wanted to ask you is what are you excited about today?
And also what is making you nervous,
whether it's something that you're working on or something that you're seeing in
your career field? Anything pertaining to that?
Sure. Well, I think, uh, you know, as we touched on cardio,
cardiovascular disease,
the medicine and surgical options for that continue to advance so rapidly.
I think it's super exciting when you look at the innovations that have come up
over the last few years,
whether those are devices to close different forms of cardiovascular disease
or the way we image or the genetics, uh,
approach that we take for personalized cardiovascular care. Um,
I think all of those hold a lot of promise for us. I think on the nervous side,
I think as we get back to,
as we continue to grow and expand and build, uh, cardiovascular, uh,
programs across the country, how do we ensure we have enough, uh,
highly trained and skilled, um, providers and staff members, uh,
within a heart center? So working within our universities and our, uh,
colleges to ensure that we have, uh, you know, the trainees, uh,
that we're gonna need for the next generation, i, I think are vitally important.
Perfect. Thank you so much for spinal thoughts, doctor. Uh,
this has been an amazing discussion.
So I wanna thank you again for coming on Becker's Healthcare and I look forward
to connecting with you again soon.
I greatly appreciate the opportunity to be here, and thank you for inviting me.
Of course. Have a wonderful week.