Electrician of the Heart Can Correct Irregularities

To be honest, the word “Electrophysiologist” can be a mouthful, and if you asked people on the street what one does, most would have to offer an educated guess.

Dr. Darren Sidney confesses that when he decided to make Electrophysiology his medical specialty, his own parents didn’t understand at first.

Then he explained to his parents that he would be helping to correct disorders that affect the heart’s rate or rhythm. For example, he could implant pacemakers to speed up slow heartbeats, or he could implant defibrillators to correct very rapid or irregular heartbeats. In some cases, he would perform cardiac ablations, using catheters to destroy small areas of the heart causing atrial fibrillation – a potentially dangerous condition that affects an estimated 2.7 million people.

To put it in simple terms, Dr. Sidney would be an electrician for the heart.

To become an Electrophysiologist, you must first be a Cardiologist ?– a doctor who specializes in heart and blood health. After that, it’s an extra two years of training to learn about the mysteries of the heart’s electrical system and how to help when things go wrong with the heart’s rhythm (arrhythmia).

Electrophysiologists are sometimes in short supply outside of large urban areas. Dr. Sidney has just joined Trident Health to establish Charleston Heart Specialists on the Trident Medical Center campus, making it the first time that the North Charleston area has had a full-time Electrophysiologist, or “E.P.”. “There has been a great deal of advancement in the field of electrophysiology over the last 10 years,” Dr. Sidney says.

"That includes some cases of congestive heart failure that can be addressed by pacemakers as part of cardiac resynchronization therapy or CRT, Implantable Cardiac Defibrillators (ICDs) and ablations of common highly symptomatic arrhythmias people struggle with.”

Remarkably, many ablations can be done on an outpatient basis, while installing devices such as a pacemaker or implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) and more complex ablations may only require an overnight stay.

Pacemakers deliver electrical pulses to make the heart beat in a more normal rhythm. Once they are installed, quality-of-life changes may be immediate for people who otherwise struggled with everyday tasks, Dr. Sidney says.

He also finds it gratifying when a defibrillator picks up a dangerous heart rhythm and delivers a shock that likely saves a patient’s life. “We’re fixing things,” he says, “and making people better.”


Common symptoms of heart rhythm problems, may include:
• chest pain
• fainting
• fast or slow heartbeat (palpitations)
• light-headedness
• dizziness
• paleness
• shortness of breath
• skipping beats – changes in the pattern of the pulse
• sweating


To contact Charleston Heart Specialists, call (843) 576-0700. For more information visit us online! www.berkeleyind.com/health