MEET THE FELLOWS: Cyrus Buhari
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| Dr. Cyrus Buhari |
Dr. Buhari is one of three cardiology fellows who started this year in UCSF Fresno’s new three-year program (with an optional fourth year) that will add three more fellows each year. UCSF Fresno’s was one of only two cardiovascular programs nationwide to receive 2007 accrediation.
And Dr. Buhari is exactly the kind of person the program is looking for to grow its own doctors. He wants to stay in the Valley. He’s also the only current fellow who has his roots in the region – his father is a cardiologist in Stockton.
Dr. John Ambrose, program director and chief of cardiology at UCSF Fresno, says the fellowships create a domino effect of leading-edge training, attracting both better faculty and better residents.
“It creates an environment of higher learning where we openly discuss modern techniques of how to take care of patients with cardiovascular disease,” Dr. Ambrose said. “That’s really the secret.”
As part of a series of stories introducing the new fellows, MedWatch Today sat down to meet Dr. Buhari.
Hometown: Stockton
Education: Western University of the Health Sciences, UCSF Fresno
Tell me what attracted you to the UCSF Fresno program.
Part of the reason I came here for an interview is Prakash Deedwania, I’d seen him speak at a couple places I’d been and I had always wanted to do some research with him. …
And it looked like the things that [Dr. Michael Peterson] was doing to the program were very academic oriented and geared towards creating better doctors. And I think that really sold me. ...
And then as soon as I started, I made contact with Dr. Deedwania and started working on a project with him, and I have had nothing but good things to say about this program. It’s been an excellent fit, as far as work side, as far as the academics, as far as the patients, as far as interaction with faculty and with people who, in the hierarchy, were above me. …
We have all the technology, and you just have to take a walk through Community Regional Medical Center and see what’s going on there before you realize, it’s just amazing. It’s amazing the resources that we have in Fresno. And finally I think we’re really going to start to take advantage of that for our population.
So, with all of the new technology and new academic programs, is this an exciting time to be a part of Community?
Absolutely. I see the past four years, before I started the fellowship, as sort of a build-up to it. There was no guarantee that the pulmonary or cardiology fellowships would be in place in time for me getting done with my training in internal medicine. But there were some very key acquisitions as far as faculty.
They got John Ambrose, who, like Dr. Deedwania, is world famous. These two guys are like rock stars for people like me. You see their name on seminal papers, on papers that transformed medicine, and the way we practice. And a lot of people, I’d bet, don’t know that they’re here in Fresno, based in Fresno. John Ambrose is our program director, and without him the fellowship wouldn’t be here.
About Dr. Deedwania:
…Of course anybody who knows the literature of cardiology knows that he’s world famous and he sits on some of the most important panels in cardiovascular disease.
So being able to work with him, it’s like being an amateur guitarist and riding with a band that’s your favorite band. It’s a real pleasure. And same with John Ambrose. …
About Dr. Ambrose:
But one thing, before all this happened, I met [Dr. Peterson] in the parking lot and we were talking about the cardiology department and he said he’s interviewing a guy by the name of John Ambrose. And I said, ‘who’s that, is he one of our old graduates?’ And Peterson just kind of giggled and said, ‘go look him up.’ And then of course going to look him up you see the kind of work he did in the ‘70s before people were thinking about heart attacks and acute syndromes, he was doing some of the seminal work. And to be able to get somebody like that for our program in Fresno is just a real, real treat. So I think we have some heavy hitters in our cardiology department, and I consider myself every day lucky to be a part of it. …
What do you think about patients staying here for care instead of going to LA or San Francisco?
That’s a big thing, that’s a big target that’s been a part of what Michael Peterson has tried to bring to Fresno, and why we brought somebody like John Ambrose to Fresno. And I personally don’t like sending patients [out of town]. People that live in Fresno, get care in Fresno. I think when it comes to the type of medicine that is beyond the normal run-of-the-mill stuff, they would like to get that care still here in Fresno.
For many years, we didn’t have those capabilities. That is one of the main benefits of the teaching program. Teaching programs bring names, they bring research dollars, they bring ideas. One of the things about the department of internal medicine, we don’t want to ever have to send anybody outside of Fresno for anything. We want to take care of all of our people here in Fresno. That’s the goal, and whatever it takes to get there, we’ll get there at some point. …
It sounds like you’re pretty gung-ho about what’s going on here, and they talk about these programs also growing Valley doctors…
That’s part of the idea. We want to bring world-class health care to Fresno and to the people of Fresno. And part of that is bringing world-class doctors. In order to draw people from outside to Fresno, the circumstances have to be right. The other way to do it is to grow those doctors, is to train those doctors, in the setting of a world-class institution and get them to stick around.
Do you see yourself sticking around?
I think so. I think if I don’t I’ll have big fight with my wife. No – we really both like Fresno. And we like where Fresno has gone in the past few years. It’s gotten so much nicer as far as food and shopping and we really like it here. It’s going to be real hard to drag us away.
This story was reported by Eddie Hughes. He can be reached at eddieh@communitymedical.org.