My Doctor Saved My Life. His Former Practice Won't Even Tell His Patients He's Gone.

This is my personal story as a cardiac patient, told from my own experience. I'm writing it because I believe patients deserve honesty about who is treating them — and because what I've encountered recently falls far short of what I think any patient should accept.

The heart attack I never saw coming

Two and a half years ago, at age 58, I had a heart attack. I was the last person anyone would have expected it to happen to: athletic, active, and a dedicated hot yoga practitioner for nine years. There were no symptoms, no warning. One day I was living my normal, healthy life, and the next I was a cardiac patient.

Since that day, I have been under the care of Dr. Yaser Cheema, an interventional cardiologist, and the care I've received from him has been nothing short of remarkable. When your heart fails you without warning, the trust you place in your cardiologist is total. Dr. Cheema earned that trust and has kept it every day since.

Then the practice split up

Dr. Cheema had been in practice with another cardiologist, Dr. Ather Anis. The two ended their partnership. That happens in medicine — partnerships dissolve, doctors move on. That part isn't what upset me.

What upset me is what happened to patients like me afterward.

What I experienced, and what I've learned

My first appointment with Dr. Cheema after the split went smoothly — no hoops, no phone calls, my care simply continued. But by my second appointment, something had changed. I was told I now needed to call the old practice myself and grant permission for my records to be sent to Dr. Cheema. To be fair, when I called, the office did send them. But that's not the point.

The point is that I should never have been placed in the middle at all. Dr. Cheema is my doctor. He treated my heart attack. He has managed my cardiac care for two and a half years. These are records of that care — my records — and a barrier that didn't exist one month suddenly existed the next. In my view, this wasn't about privacy or procedure. It was gamesmanship: the business side of a dissolved partnership inserting itself between a heart patient and his cardiologist. That is exactly the thing that should never be allowed to enter a patient's care, and it entered mine.

Worse, I have come to learn that when Dr. Cheema's patients contact or visit the old office, they are not being told that he is no longer with the practice. Instead, they're told he is "unavailable," and they are scheduled to see a physician assistant. And when patients ask where Dr. Cheema is now practicing, the office will say only that he remains in Loudoun County — nothing more.

Think about who these patients are. People who have had heart attacks. People on complex medication regimens. People whose continuity of care can be a matter of life and death. In my opinion, keeping such patients in the dark about where their own physician has gone — while quietly rebooking them with someone else — treats them not as patients but as assets to be retained.

Why I'm speaking up

I believe medicine is built on trust, and trust is built on honesty. In my view, what has happened here is unethical: patients are entitled to know when their doctor leaves a practice, entitled to prompt access to their own medical records, and entitled to the information they need to follow their physician if they choose to. Every patient has that right under law. No one should have to fight for it.

My purpose in writing this is simple. If you are a patient of Dr. Yaser Cheema and you've been told he is "unavailable" — he is not unavailable. He has left that practice and is now seeing patients at Loudoun Heart and Vascular in Leesburg. You have the right to request your medical records, and the office is obligated to provide them. And you have the right to be treated by the doctor you chose.

My highest recommendation

I will continue my care with Dr. Cheema, and I'm grateful every day that I found him. I only wish the winding-down of a business partnership had been handled with the same integrity he has shown me as a physician.

— Douglas Spitz
Cardiac patient, Loudoun County, Virginia