"We take personal pride in knowing our patients and seeing them through tough portions of their life."
Hemal Gada, MD, has lived in central Pennsylvania for a decade, and he calls it "the best decade of my life."
Dr. Gada is president of the UPMC Heart and Vascular Institute and medical director of the Structural Heart Program at UPMC in Central Pa. He and the rest of his team are entrenched members of the community.
"Being able to help people with their health problems is only one facet of what we do," Dr. Gada says. "We get to know them personally. We get to know their family members, their parents, their children, their friends.
"So, we're very much embedded in the community. And we take personal pride in knowing our patients and seeing them through tough portions of their life by helping them from a medical standpoint, but also helping them from a personal standpoint."
He and the team at UPMC Harrisburg feel a commitment to live up to the trust that the community places in them. They strive to provide the best cardiovascular care possible.
The UPMC Heart and Vascular Institute offers a full spectrum of care, including preventive care, diagnosis, and treatment. They're there for patients at every step of their cardiac journey. The team includes specialists in all different types of heart disease, all working together to help patients.
"When we think about compassionate care, we're thinking about getting our patients back to the quality of life that they wanted to have," Dr. Gada says. "They're suffering from some sort of crippling, debilitating structural heart illness, some sort of cardiovascular illness. And we're going to bring all the resources and tools available to get them out of that situation."
As a member of the world-class UPMC Heart and Vascular Institute, UPMC Harrisburg helps pioneer the latest technology and clinical trials for the region. This means patients can receive innovative and advanced care right in central Pennsylvania.
"Patients don't need to leave this region to find the next level of care," Dr. Gada says. "We're involved with industry relationships to bring the best and brightest technologies right here to central Pennsylvania. So folks don't have to go to other academic medical centers to partake in that care."
While UPMC provides expert care, it does so with each patient in mind. They tailor their care toward each individual, going through multiple options until they find the right plan for that person.
It's a shared decision-making process that's geared toward providing patients with better outcomes.
"My No. 1 goal is to provide a superior quality of life and get them back to enjoying things that they were enjoying two to three years ago, before they were afflicted with the structural heart disease," Dr. Gada says.
That's why, after all of his years of training and clinical care, Dr. Gada's focus always comes back to his patients. He says there's nothing better than seeing patients healthy after getting treatment.
"What gets me up every morning is knowing that I'm going to make a difference — a very positive difference — in someone's life on a daily basis," Dr. Gada says.
At UPMC, Life Changing Medicine means caring for the communities that we serve.
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