Note to editors/producers: A high-resolution video interview with Dr. Tung is available for download here.
PHOENIX (Feb. 28, 2021) – Banner – University Medical Center Phoenix recently added an impressive, internationally-recognized expert in cardiology and electrophysiology to its team. Dr. Roderick Tung, who serves as the director for the Cardiovascular Center at Banner – University Medical Center Phoenix and Division Chief of Cardiology at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix, comes to Banner Health with a vision to make it one of the leading innovative academic hospitals for cardiovascular care in the Southwest region.
Before joining Banner, Dr. Tung served as director of Cardiac Electrophysiology at the University of Chicago and as a Professor of Medicine at the Pritzker School of Medicine. Dr. Tung graduated from Northwestern University Medical School in Chicago, Illinois. He completed his residency at Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School in the Department of Internal Medicine. Dr. Tung also completed his cardiology fellowship at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California and trained in cardiac electrophysiology at Beth-Israel Deaconess Medical Center and Harvard Medical School.
Dr. Tung holds cardiology close to his heart — literally. When he was 18, he had an arrhythmia, which is an irregular heartbeat that occurs when electrical impulses in the heart don’t work properly. Dr. Tung ended up needing a catheter ablation, a procedure which was fairly new at the time and is now something he performs regularly in his role today. He cites this personal experience as the reason why he decided to go into cardiology and serve patients who endure similar problems.
“What’s exciting about cardiology is it’s in its infancy still,” Dr. Tung said. “And it’s the perfect fusion of technology, compassionate patient care, and then looking forward to say, ‘How can we better understand these disease processes, and then how can we better treat them across a large healthcare system?’”
Dr. Tung is most excited about utilizing Banner’s extensive network of resources to better educate patients about their care and influence how medicine is practiced in the future.
“I’m excited about trying to bring all the specialists that we have within our academic medical center to be able to raise the bar in terms of how patients are approached,” Dr. Tung said. “We want to continue questioning and advancing how medicine will be practiced in the future and have a major influence on new standards of care decades from now.”
Dr. Tung believes that through innovative strides made in research and highly specialized programs like cardio-oncology and cardiometabolic and obesity treatment, heart care in Phoenix can be revolutionized to make patients’ lives better.
“It’s our mission to be able to bring everything that we’ve learned, look at the history of cardiology, put it with where medicine is going with technology and new scientific discoveries, and be on that leading edge of science,” he said. “Because in the end, it comes down to the patient. It’s going to take us some time, but I think this is certainly a new era for cardiovascular medicine in Phoenix.”
About Banner – University Medical Center Phoenix
Banner – University Medical Center Phoenix is a large teaching hospital that has provided medical care to Arizona and the Southwest since 1911. It is part of Banner – University Medicine, a premier academic medical network. The institution, which has trained thousands of doctors over decades as a teaching hospital, is the academic medical center for The University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix. The hospital, recognized by U.S. News and World Report as one of the nation’s best hospitals, specializes in heart care, cancer care, high-risk obstetrics, neurosciences, organ transplants, medical toxicology and emergency care, including a Level I trauma center. Banner – University Medical Center Phoenix is part of Banner Health, a nonprofit health care system with 30 hospitals in six states. For more information, visit bannerhealth.com/universityphoenix.
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