Meet Dr. Deepak Talreja, as he discusses his areas of focus, his path to medicine, his approach to patient care, and how the field of Interventional Cardiology is evolving.
Hi, my name is Deepak Talreja. I'm a cardiologist with Centa cardiology specialists. I've been in practice here in Hampton Roads now for 19 years, I work both at Centa Virginia Beach General Hospital and at Centa Heart Hospital. I'm on the structural heart team and I'm an interventional cardiologist. I see patients in the office as well. Uh I've been here now 19 years. I serve as the medical director of the cardiovascular service line, the director of cardiology at Center Virginia Beach General Hospital and one of the leaders on our structural heart team. Frankly, I love all of cardiology. But the areas I have the most expertise in are in the areas of interventional and structural cardiology. Structural cardiology is a new field for us. It really started back in around 2010, 2011. I had the honor of serving on our inaugural team that started the transcatheter aortic valve replacement here at Centa. Back in 2011, we were in the 1st 50 hospitals in the nation that had access to this new technology to put valves into the heart without open heart surgery. It's been amazing to watch that field develop over the last really 10 years since we did the first cases, the technology has become more and more sophisticated and a lot of my time is devoted to that. In addition to that, I run our prevention and lipidology clinic. I see general cardiology patients and take care of patients with heart attack and heart disease and blockages as well as other structural heart problems. In addition to valve disease, like holes in the heart and problems like that, I do have a story about my path to medicine. When I was in high school, I attended high school here in Virginia Beach and actually came back home to practice in the same area. Uh I originally was interested in both engineering and in medicine and was interested in a biomedical engineering combination. As I got further and further along, what I learned is the best thing you can do in biomedical engineering is to find ways to heal the human body. My father is a physician who practiced here in this area for over 40 years. My wife is a pediatrician here and my sister is an OBGYN. So I really didn't have much choice. That's all we know how to do. I love the practice of medicine and it's been an honor to take care of patients in this community around us. Um As I did my training, I started at the University of Virginia where I did my medical school and my undergraduate training and then I went to Vanderbilt University where I did internal medicine training. And then I went to the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota where I did my cardiology and interventional cardiology training. And then came back here, home to Hampton Roads in 2004 where I've been happily in practice since that time, I think care of, of patients is one of the most important things that we do in our work on a daily basis. Every patient's situation, their family, their disease process is unique. And really my attitude is it's a very collaborative process we work in together. Only an individual knows their wishes, their desires, their hopes, their fears, what they want in life. As physicians, we train on the medical knowledge and procedures and techniques to help maintain and promote health. And it's really a meeting of the minds where the patient knows what they want to achieve and we know the ways they can get there and what we can do to help. So, in my mind, the physician brings medical knowledge of the techniques, procedures, medications, and the patient brings an understanding of what they really want to achieve. What are their goals, what are they of? What are they excited about? And it's a meeting of the minds at the end of the day. And so we have to have an interactive discussion, we have to both hear each other and see what's important to each other. And then once we've come up with a good plan together. It's up to both the patient and their health care team to figure out what options exist. And how do we stay on track with those options? Whether it's a matter of diet, nutritional programs and prevention or whether it's a procedure or a surgical operation to correct a problem and help maintain health in the long run. So what brought me to Sana when I came back to Hampton Roads, I actually was given an offer to stay at the Mayo Clinic and stay on the faculty there. And that was obviously a very exciting offer. Um but it meant a lot to me to come back home. And to this day, I take care of many folks that helped me get where I am in my life, old school teachers and principals and friends of the family and other folks. And that's a real honor to be able to do that. What brought me to Centa. Centa is a nationally known and recognized program. Centa is really on the cutting edge of technologies. That's why back in 2011 when Edwards, the company we first started the trials with was looking for the largest and most successful health care organizations in the country to start and pilot these new technologies. They approached our team. So Centa really has been all about quality, about advancing medical care and taking care of each individual patient. That to me is extremely exciting as a healthcare provider. That's the environment I want to be in to take great care of my patients. And that's what brought me here. And I found that to be true to this day and I really enjoy being a part of Centa health. So in the field of structural heart disease, there's a lot going on. It's amazing to see where we've come in the last 10 years when we first started doing transcatheter aortic valve replacement. It was only really for inoperable patients that had no other options. And now it's become a routine part of the care delivery for patients with aortic valve stenosis. That doesn't mean we're sitting on our laurels. There are a number of trials we're involved in looking at extending that to lower risk patients, looking at newer valves that have been designed to overcome some of the limitations. We're in the 4th and 5th generation of some of the products we've used for the last decade. And we're in the first generation of newer design devices for niche applications. We're always looking at making the procedure safer, making the recovery time shorter and thinking about costs and spreading it out further in the community.
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