Cardiologist near Westwood, CA

CACVI does not keep a separate street office inside Westwood; we serve Westwood and UCLA-area patients from our Los Angeles office at 8741 Alden Drive, in the Cedars-Sinai medical district a short drive east across the Westside. We are transparent about this rather than advertising a Westwood address we do not have. For most residents it is a quick trip, and all of our on-site diagnostics—EKG, echocardiography, stress testing, and rhythm monitoring—are performed there. Call 310-652-2744 and our staff will give you directions, parking guidance, and a list of what to bring for your first visit.

Whether you need a referral depends on your plan. Most PPO plans let you book directly with our cardiologists, while many HMO and student plans require a referral from a primary care physician or the campus health center first. Because Westwood has so many patients on university-affiliated and employer plans, we recommend calling 310-652-2744 before you schedule so our staff can verify your specific coverage and tell you whether a referral or authorization is needed. If your plan requires you to start at a campus or primary-care clinic, we can accept that referral and coordinate your cardiology care from there without duplicating what has already been done.

Often palpitations in young, healthy adults are benign—triggered by caffeine, stress, poor sleep, or dehydration, all common in a student and early-career community. But some deserve a cardiologist's evaluation: palpitations that are frequent or prolonged, that come with fainting, chest pain, or breathlessness, or that occur during exertion, and any palpitations in someone with a family history of sudden cardiac death or inherited heart conditions. We start with a careful history and an EKG, and because episodes are intermittent, we often add a wearable monitor to record your rhythm over days. The goal is to confidently separate a harmless awareness of your heartbeat from a rhythm problem that needs treatment.

It depends on your history and symptoms. For most young, symptom-free people, a careful personal and family history plus a physical exam is the starting point; additional testing such as an EKG or echocardiogram is added when there are red flags. Those red flags include fainting or near-fainting during exercise, chest pain or unusual breathlessness with exertion, a heart murmur, or a family history of sudden cardiac death, cardiomyopathy, or an inherited arrhythmia. Older adults or anyone with cardiac risk factors starting a vigorous new program also benefit from evaluation. We tailor screening to your actual risk rather than ordering tests reflexively, and we explain clearly what any finding means for your training.

Atrial fibrillation becomes more common with age, and it is a major concern in Westwood's older high-rise community. AFib is an irregular, often rapid rhythm in the heart's upper chambers; per American Heart Association guidance, it lets blood pool and form clots that can cause a stroke, and it is associated with roughly a fivefold increase in stroke risk. In older adults it can also worsen heart failure and cause fatigue or dizziness. We confirm it with EKG and longer-term monitoring, then weigh stroke risk with a score such as CHA2DS2-VASc to decide about blood-thinning therapy, balanced against fall and bleeding risk. Rate or rhythm control is chosen to fit the individual, with close follow-up.

A murmur is an extra sound blood makes as it moves through the heart. Many murmurs are harmless ("innocent"), but some signal valve disease—most importantly aortic stenosis, a narrowing of the aortic valve that becomes more common with age and can cause chest pain, fainting, or breathlessness as it progresses. ACC/AHA valvular heart disease guidance recommends echocardiography to characterize a concerning murmur and periodic surveillance to track it. We use echocardiography in our office to measure valve function, grade its severity, and follow it over time, so that if a valve eventually needs repair or replacement—including modern catheter-based options for aortic stenosis—the timing is based on real data, not guesswork.

Yes. Heart failure means the heart cannot pump efficiently enough to meet the body's needs, causing shortness of breath, fatigue, and swelling in the legs and ankles. The 2022 AHA/ACC/HFSA heart-failure guideline emphasizes early diagnosis, guideline-directed medications, and close monitoring to keep patients stable and out of the hospital. We use echocardiography to measure how well your heart is pumping, adjust medications, track weight and symptoms, and coordinate with your primary care doctor. Because managing heart failure well depends on frequent, consistent follow-up, having a focused outpatient cardiology office a short drive from Westwood—where you see the same physician each time—makes that ongoing care realistic.

Under the 2017 ACC/AHA Blood Pressure Guideline, readings of 130-139/80-89 mm Hg are Stage 1 hypertension and 140/90 mm Hg or above is Stage 2, confirmed on repeated, properly taken measurements. It is a myth that this is only an older person's problem, plenty of younger Westwood adults run high, and untreated pressure quietly wears on the heart, kidneys, brain, and blood vessels regardless of age. Seeing a cardiologist makes sense when your numbers sit consistently in Stage 2, when medication is not bringing them down, or when you already carry heart disease or diabetes. We verify the diagnosis with careful measurement, look for strain on the heart with echocardiography when indicated, and match treatment to your overall risk.

Use time and severity as your guide. The 2021 AHA/ACC Chest Pain Guideline treats chest pain or pressure lasting more than a few minutes—especially with sweating, nausea, shortness of breath, or pain radiating to the arm, jaw, or back—as a possible heart attack that requires calling 911 right away. Do not drive yourself; from Westwood, Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center's emergency department is close. Brief, fleeting twinges, discomfort clearly tied to heartburn, or stable symptoms you have had for a long time are reasonable to bring to a scheduled visit. When in doubt, err toward 911—a heart attack is time-critical, and we can always complete a work-up afterward.

Most of the common cardiac work-up is performed in our Los Angeles office, so a Westwood patient rarely needs a separate hospital visit for testing. On site we offer electrocardiograms (EKG), echocardiography (a heart ultrasound showing the chambers and valves—central to evaluating murmurs and heart failure), treadmill and pharmacologic stress testing, and Holter or event monitoring to capture your rhythm over hours or days. Keeping these together often lets us complete an evaluation in a single appointment. Only highly specialized procedures, such as cardiac catheterization, are referred out, and when that is needed we arrange scheduling and share results directly with the treating team so nothing is repeated unnecessarily.

Yes. We treat cardiology as a partnership. We send visit notes, test results, and our treatment plan back to your primary care physician—or your campus health provider—so everyone works from the same chart, and we welcome referrals and questions from local practices. When a patient needs hospital-level care, we coordinate with Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center and other hospitals, sharing your imaging and history with the treating team. This kind of coordination reduces duplicate testing, prevents conflicting medications, and means that if another physician adjusts a blood-pressure, rhythm, or diabetes medication, we can see how it affects your heart and adjust accordingly.

Should you require inpatient care, admission, a coronary angiogram, a valve procedure, or anything the office cannot provide, Westwood sits beside Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, and we coordinate with UCLA or another suitable hospital based on what you need. Managing your outpatient care through us keeps things continuous: your cardiologist already knows your history, so any hospital stay is planned from records we hold instead of assembled from scratch. We make the referral, share imaging and notes with the treating physicians, and then resume your ongoing care, follow-up visits, medication changes, and valve or rhythm surveillance, once you are home.