As a part of our “Meet Yale Internal Medicine” series, today’s feature is on Merilyn Varghese, MD, MSc, assistant professor of medicine (cardiovascular disease).
Merilyn Varghese, MD, MSc, assistant professor of medicine (cardiovascular medicine), returned to Yale in late 2023 after completing cardiovascular medicine and post-doctoral cardiovascular research fellowships at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center.
“I love the culture at Yale. No matter where I go, I miss it here,” Varghese said. “When it came time to think about where I wanted to be, Yale was the first and last answer. Happily, they wanted me back too.”
Varghese completed her internal medicine residency at Yale and served as chief resident of the Yale Internal Medicine Traditional Residency Program in 2019. She first became interested in cardiology during residency while evaluating patients on the consult service and in the cardiac intensive care unit.
“Cardiac physiology can be strange and requires a lot of nuance to understand. There are a lot of aspects that you need to wrap your head around. For me, that made it one of the most interesting fields within internal medicine,” she said. “There’s also so much innovation in cardiology, with many procedures available now that weren’t available even ten years ago. It’s exciting to be part of that.”
Varghese is now a general non-invasive cardiologist and recently took on the role of medical director for cardiac rehab and primary prevention at the VA Connecticut Healthcare System in West Haven.
“Veterans are a special population. We know that, regardless of combat experience, veterans have unique risk factors, including post-traumatic stress disorder and, unfortunately, military sexual trauma. They also have a higher likelihood of having other risk factors, like cigarette smoking, hypertension, and obesity,” said Varghese. “There was a recent study that showed that women veterans have an increased risk of heart disease than the civilian population .”
Varghese recently received a two-year career development award from The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs Veterans Integrated Services Network (VISN) 1 to support her project on sex-based differences in cardiac rehabilitation.
Cardiac rehab is a multi-modality intervention for people who have experienced a cardiac event. It usually includes 36 sessions over 12 weeks and includes exercise, medication management, tobacco cessation, stress factor modification, and behavioral therapy to help with lifestyle adjustments and to process the experience of a heart attack or other cardiac event.
Through her research, Varghese hopes to better understand the current rates of cardiac rehabilitation among veterans and the differences in experiences. In the long term, she aims to increase participation in cardiac rehab within the VA and at a national – or even international – level.
“We would love if everyone went to cardiac rehabilitation after a cardiac event, like a heart attack or a heart surgery, but participation in cardiac rehabilitation is very low, and women are underrepresented,” said Varghese. “It’s especially true of women veterans who have been historically understudied.”
Her clinical and research interests have intertwined, so most of her time is focused on engaging patients to help prevent the next cardiac event.
“Many studies show that lifestyle is important. It sounds simple, but it can be hard to change,” she said. “We need to find ways to engage with people and keep them committed to making those important changes. That’s what drives me, and it’s what I’m passionate about.”
Varghese is grateful for her mentors and others who have encouraged and guided her along the way. She says when she first set out to go into medicine, she never fully appreciated how many people would help her in her career.
“It takes so many people in your life to help you come out as a fully trained physician of any kind,” she said. “At every step of your career, you need more and more people around you.”
Now, Varghese is glad to contribute to Yale’s culture and support those coming up behind her. She enjoys training fellows and students and encourages them to choose a career in something they love to do.
“There are days when everything is easy and works out, and those days are wonderful. But on the worst days, you want to be able to say, ‘That was a terrible day, but I still love my job.’”
She also emphasizes the need to find a career that fits in the context of their larger life.
“We all need to have lives outside work, whether that’s family, friends, hobbies, or whatever is important to us. I’m thankful that cardiology is one part of my fulfilling life.”
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