Special to the Las Vegas Review-Journal
Have you heard this one? Where do you go for good medical care in Las Vegas? Answer: the airport.
Don‘t try telling that stale joke to Caliente residents Caitlyn Beard, 22, and her husband, Steven, 24. They are not buying into the pervasive notion that people cannot find good medical care in Southern Nevada. The young couple found out the hard way that Las Vegas has one of the best congenital heart programs in the country.
In fact, the Children‘s Heart Center of Nevada may be one of the best kept secrets in Las Vegas. Dr. William Evans is still surprised how many local residents have never heard about the multidisciplinary center he founded in 1980. The practice offers a wide range of care, such as electrophysiology, interventional cardiology and cardiac surgery for the fetus, child and adult with congenital heart disease.
“I talk to doctors I’ve known for 30 years and they (ask), ‘Do you guys do heart surgery?‘ “ Evans said. “And I say, ‘Yes, we do heart surgery.‘ I get a little frustrated. ‘You’ve known me for all this time and you don‘t know what we do?‘ “
People outside Las Vegas have obviously heard about the Children‘s Heart Center. The group‘s national reputation has drawn about 1,200 to 1,300 out-of-state patients to the center the past 12 months, said Steven Eisen, chief executive officer.
The center offers a collaborative approach to detection of prenatal cardiac disease that features a unique “office calls” early intervention program. When an OB-GYN or a high-risk obstetrician detects a possible heart issue during a routine prenatal examination, field cardiologists from Children’s Heart Center go to the patient at her doctor‘s office and evaluate the expectant mother, Evans explained.
“The idea of going into the community – that‘s why we have such a high success rate, because our doctors are there on site,” Evans said. “That‘s what‘s different about Southern Nevada than anywhere else in the U.S.”
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