Dr. Alberto Chavira is a board-certified, accomplished cardiologist with more than 40 years of medical experience. 20 of those years he practiced interventional cardiology (treating patients in shock, performing angioplasties, inserting pacemakers, etc.). He now practices outpatient cardiology in San Marcos, California.
Dr. Chavira graduated from Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago, Illinois. He then trained as a primary care physician in Albuquerque, New Mexico. After 8 years of being a primary care physician, he returned to complete his internal medicine residency at Texas Tech University Medical Center in El Paso, Texas, and a cardiology fellowship at Kaiser Sunset Medical Center in Los Angeles. Kaiser Sunset Hospital is a 700-bed tertiary care center where the most advanced treatment of cardiac disease is provided.
Prior to becoming board-certified in internal medicine cardiology, Dr. Chavira was the medical director of a large network of community clinics, first in Albuquerque, New Mexico, then in El Paso, Texas. It was in this setting that Dr. Chavira developed his strong commitment to not only treat diseases, but also to provide preventive care and to help patients improve overall health. It was in that setting that Dr. Chavira established a “Medicos del Pueblo,” a medical corporation to recruit and employ physicians to work in the clinics he supervised.
Dr. Chavira has also participated as a sub-investigator on various clinical research projects.
He is a fellow of the American College of Cardiology and a member of the San Diego County Medical Society.
Dr. Chavira and his staff are fluent in both English and Spanish.
Dr. Chavira is strongly committed to providing exhaustive and comprehensive medical treatments of heart disease before advising the patient to undergo a variety of invasive procedures (angioplasties, ICD’s, ablations, etc.). This approach often is not the case in the general cardiology community where the patient is commonly advised to undergo procedures, especially angioplasty, before aggressive and full course medical therapy is allowed to control the illness. It is not unusual for patients to undergo angioplasty (and other procedures), which are of no or minimal benefit to the patient, and which sometimes can cause harm. Dr. Chavira will ensure that any procedure that you are advised to undergo will be of benefit to you.
Nutritional counseling, exercise prescriptions, and weight loss counseling are provided to his patients not only to treat the underlying cardiac disease but also to enhance the overall well-being of the patient and prevent progression and also cause regression of buildup cholesterol in the arteries. These treatments are individualized for each patient.
When not practicing medicine, Dr. Chavira most enjoys spending time with his grown children and his grandchildren. His principal hobby is reading on many subjects not related to medicine. He also bikes, swims, and works out in the gym as often as possible.
