ABSTRACT
The heart is dead easy. If you ever actually meet a cardiologist, it shouldn't take long to realise that an
abundance of neurons is no prerequisite for success in the specialty. Admittedly this is partly because they have largely abandoned all semblance of clinical assessments, pinning their diagnostic decisions on the outcome of mod-tech investigations such as echocardiograms and exercise tolerance tests. A cardiological colleague of mine admitted recently he has used his stethoscope only once in the past three years, and that was at a medical conference in Buenos Aires to kill a tarantula. (It is a myth that the heavier heads of 'cardiology' stethoscopes are designed thus to reduce extraneous noise — the simple truth is that cardiologists are inclined to hold their conferences at the more exotic venues where the tarantulas tend to be bigger. The excessive price of the cardiology stethoscope exists so that the cardiologist will notice he's bought something. Cardiologists do rather well in the private sector.)
Cardiologists are, in fact, the physicians' equivalent of the consultant surgeon, right down to their pinstripe suits and shiny black shoes and even shinier big cars. While the outside world views surgeons as the only 'real' doctors in a hospital — leading them to consider anyone above the age of 35 who doesn't have a 'Mister'2 in front of their name as some sort of failure — it does at least nod deferentially in the direction of the cardiologist as being a character of some import. This view is echoed in the media. The cardiologist's work is seen as more demanding — both intellectually and physically — than that of your standard punter physician. While many decades have passed since the Sports pages laboured under the misapprehension that big lumbering strikers were the heroes of the football world — having realised that centre-forwards scored more goals than other people because . . . like . . . er . . . they spent all their time lounging around the opponents' goal area — the surprisingly backward reaches of medical journalism seem fixed at the level of 'the heart — that's really important, isn't it? Those heart doctors must be
geniuses.' It is amazing how this clear fallacy can fool a surprising number of people, including those who should know better, notably the cardiologists themselves.
