Cardiologist Dr. Khaled Shelig joined the medical staff earlier this spring and set up his offices on the 7th floor of the Owen Sound Regional Hospital.
For many years heart patients in the region have been served by the hospital's internal medicine specialists. While they have extensive knowledge and experience in cardiac medicine, the addition of a specialist in cardiology will enhance the services available and allow more heart patients to be treated here, rather than having to travel to larger centres.
Grey Bruce is a hot spot for heart disease. The rate of the disease in the region is higher than the Ontario and Canadian average. Heart disease accounts for 40 per cent of all deaths in Grey Bruce, so the addition of a cardiologist is important.
One of the main tools Dr. Shelig will use in his practice is the echocardiograph. For many years echocardiograms have been done at the Owen Sound Regional Hospital, but the machines are aging and can't do some of the precision work that will help make the best diagnoses, especially stress testing.
The Hospital Foundation's current spring campaign is aiming to raise $150,000 toward the purchase of a new echocardiogram machine to be used by Dr, Shelig and other internal medicine specialists.
Originally from Libya, Dr. Shelig moved to Canada in 1999.
"I trained at Queens University in Kingston and then after I finished I went to Saskatchewan and did a couple of years there," he explains.
"I decided to move back to Ontario and so went to Ottawa for my transition period. Both my wife and I grew up in a small town so socially we don't like to be in a huge city. I liked the size of Owen Sound, and the great thing is it's not far from the big city so we can go there any time we want."
Setting up a new department will be challenging professionally, and he loves a challenge.
"I need to practise cardiology not only to treat sick people, but also for prevention, which is treating the risk factors. In Owen Sound and area there is very high incidence of cardiovascular risk factors such as diabetes, hypertension, obesity and high cholesterol."
Dr. Shelig describes himself as a non-invasive cardiologist. That means he doesn't do any surgery, everything involves non-invasive treatment methods.
"The major non-invasive thing that we are doing here in Owen Sound is the echocardiogram," he says.
"The other good thing about practicing cardiology here is I have access to many other specialists in Kitchener, Toronto or London if my patients require more invasive procedures. I have many options, so my patients will get timely treatments, whatever they need. I did some calls last week and had to refer a patient, and Kitchener admitted them the next morning. So the response time is very good."
The stress test is the best way to see what's going on with the heart, but our current machines lack the software and hardware to perform this test properly. As a result, the Foundation is launching an appeal to purchase a new echocardiograph as quickly as possible.
