Top Cardiology News for July 2026

So this past month, I traveled to Chula Vista, California, just south of San Diego, to cover the Society of Cardiovascular Computed Tomography, or SCCT, meeting.

There was a lot of really interesting science, some small studies that I really enjoyed covering.

But what stood out to me was a talk in a session related to burnout in the field.

This is something not new to anybody in medicine, but it was a really interesting take on how burnout stands in the field of cardiac imaging right now.

Dr. Kavitha Chinayan, who is the outgoing president of SCCT, presented some survey data where they showed that about three in five, that's more than half of cardiovascular imaging physicians, report feeling burned out.

The causes were really interesting because they were related to working outside of their scheduled hours, what she called pajama time, including more than a third of respondents who said that they did that outside.

The field of cardiac imaging is unique in that a lot of the work that they do is not reimbursable per se, but is necessary to keep the field going.

And what was really kind of had my feelers going up was during the discussion period of the session, a few different audience members got up to talk about their personal experiences, and they were very passionate about talking about some really not so great things that they'd experienced over their careers and making remarks about how people who are now in positions of leadership should really step up to make change for new physicians, especially given that the field is facing a shortage in the years to come.

So it just was a remarkable session.

It was remarkable to talk to Dr. Chenayan to hear about her experience and what she'd really like to see from the field and from the society going forward.

The survey itself was not that big, but I know she wants to do more work in this space down the line.

That's

really cool, Yael.

So were they able to talk about what makes cardiac imaging so unique in this way?

Yeah.

So, I mean, the baseline, all the usual things, right? All the administrative pressures and burden that all physicians are dealing with.

But also it's just this concept of dealing with work.

Inefficient workflows was a big one that she called out.

Oh, yeah.

Just the way that they have to process all these images, how they have to check things off, how they have to, you know, people were talking about having to log into the system 15 different times just to be able to see this image and check it or double check it and submit it, things like that.

Also, a lot of leadership and institutional culture problems.

I don't know if that's related to, you know, not feeling appreciated or just feeling like the work that they are doing isn't recognized.

And then this after-hours work, you know, a lot of what other physicians in other fields do has to be done, you know, in a hospital, say, in a cath lab, in an OR suite.

But a lot of what imagers are doing can really be done from a computer in a secure network anywhere.

So there's this assumption that they're going to be able to do this work at home.