Dr. Weiner, who is board certified in cardiology and in internal medicine, has been practicing medicine for 28 years. The Skyline Cardiovascular Institute is at 111 Stonebridge Blvd.
For an appointment, call 731-410-6777.
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Prevention is the key to heart disease, stroke
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| Dr. Ron Weiner advises Terrie Weaver on her health. |
“The key is prevention, not treatment, which is costing a fortune,” says Dr. Weiner, a cardiologist who opened the Skyline Cardiovascular Institute last July. “We want to prevent the development or retard the progress of atherosclerosis (hardening of the arteries) and other cardio-vascular diseases.”
Dr. Weiner’s clinic offers a coordinated, comprehensive approach to the problem. That includes…
• The Heart Attack and Stroke Prevention Clinic, which offers advanced testing to detect early signs and genetic tendency for cardiac disease.
• A cardiac dietitian, who as a clinical educator, counsels patients about eating properly.
• Pulmonary testing, stress tests, echocardiograms, x-rays, metabolism testing, nuclear medicine testing, peripheral vascular disease evaluation and other cardiac screening tests.
• The Stonebridge Apothecary, an in-clinic pharmacy that stocks all medications Dr. Weiner’s patients’ need. A pharmacist is on hand to talk to patients and answer questions about medications.
• Cardiac and pulmonary rehabilitation equipment.
• In-house laboratory.
• A four-bed sleep lab for diagnosing sleep disorders. (If you have coronary artery disease and sleep apnea, your chance of dying is five times greater if the sleep apnea is untreated, clinic staffs say.)
The clinic also will be offering cardiac CT scans.
“The whole idea is to keep people out of the hospital, to keep them from having to get a heart cathe-terization or heart bypass surgery,” Dr. Weiner says. “I don’t want them to have to see me in the hospital.”
Heart disease, the nation’s number one killer, is at epidemic levels, he says.
The Heart Attack and Stroke Prevention Clinic, run by nurse practitioners Alex Walker and Jeff Young, is a key component of Dr. Weiner’s program. Screening done through the clinic includes a CIMT (carotid intima-media thickness), an ultrasound that measures the thickness of the inner layers of a person’s arteries, giving the arterial age of the patient. Advanced cholesterol testing, which goes beyond determining a patient’s LDL and HDL levels, breaks down cholesterol levels into smaller particles and gives the health practitioner a genetic profile of a patient’s propensity to develop arterial disease.
“Using the acclaimed Bale Method to prevent heart attacks and strokes, Skyline Cardiovascular can assess a patient’s risks with a simple battery of inexpensive tests,” Dr. Weiner says.
This model of heart attack and stroke prevention in a coordinated environment can be used throughout the country, Dr. Weiner explained. “This is a unique approach, and we are getting good results.”
Most of his patients begin their journey to a healthier lifestyle with an initial battery of tests and evaluation by Dr. Weiner. The clinic sets up an individualized program of prevention for each patient, depending on what is learned through the testing.
“There’s little question that we have made huge advances in treating cardiovascular disease with invasive techniques, but it is bankrupting us,” he says. “No one, though, is really concentrating on prevention.”
He explained: “If you can prevent, or even slow down, the development of atherosclerosis, you will impact that patient’s risk for having a heart attack or stroke. We’re developing a heart attack and stroke prevention model that is a key for meeting future health care needs.”