Interventional cardiologist named new medical director of the cardiac catheterization laboratory at Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center
By Jane Schmitt
Matters of the heart are what matter to Ronald P. Emerson, an interventional cardiologist who most recently was named medical director of the cardiac catheterization laboratory at Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center.
Life-saving care is the goal of the lab, a joint venture for the hospital with Catholic Health System, Kaleida Health and Erie County Medical Center. In the top post, Emerson oversees the clinical performance, provides patient care and reports clinical outcomes to New York state and national data registries.
Heart care has been his professional pursuit, but for Emerson, who grew up in Orchard Park, it is highly personal, too.
“I knew early in my undergraduate education that cardiology would be my chosen field as my father had succumbed to a heart attack at age 42,” he said.
A keen interest in science as a youth led him to enter a pre-med program in college and go on to a career in medicine.
“I was guided by my parents, who provided me the opportunity, support and direction to be successful in school,” Emerson said.
He earned a master’s degree in health sciences at the University at Buffalo and completed his medical degree at St. George’s University of Medicine in Grenada, West Indies.
Then came a residency in internal medicine at UB. He completed a cardiovascular disease fellowship at the University of Wisconsin in 1994 and a second fellowship at Sinai Samaritan Medical Center in Milwaukee in 1995.
The pull of family eventually brought him back to Buffalo.
“My mother still lives in Orchard Park and she always hoped that I might return home to Western New York to practice medicine,” Emerson said. “After three years on the faculty at the Sinai Samaritan Medical Center, I returned to Orchard Park to join a private practice with a colleague.”
He is affiliated with Empire Cardiology P.C. and is a longtime clinical assistant professor in the department of medicine at Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences at UB.
According to Emerson, the catheterization lab at Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center provides a vital service in Niagara County. Its primary function is to visualize coronary arteries and heart muscle in order to diagnose heart disease for patients and assist in determining the most appropriate treatment strategy.
“We also have the capability to perform coronary angioplasty and stenting of arteries to improve blood flow that has been compromised by cholesterol plaques or acute thrombosis,” he said. “This is especially important in patients who need this service emergently such as those sustaining a heart attack and re-establishing blood flow to the heart as soon as possible will result in less heart muscle damage and thus (improved) outcomes.”
The resiliency of patients who experience health emergencies continues to impress Emerson.
“When faced with life-threatening health challenges and direction, patients will make dedicated changes to their lives which can be physically and mentally challenging,” he said. “But they come to realize that they are making healthy choices for not only themselves but for those who love them.”