About our practice

Our board-certified physicians, Dr. Jeffrey Caren and Dr. Mark Urman work closely with their patients’ other doctors to provide the highest quality care in a caring and comfortable environment. The goal of the practice is simply excellence while providing old-fashioned traditional bed-side compassion. Both doctors accept new patients. However, new patients for Dr. Urman generally need to be referred by their current physician.

While our patients generally identify with either Dr. Caren or Dr. Urman as their main cardiologist, the doctors are partners and work closely together. Thus, even if one doctor is not immediately available, the other doctor has access to the patient chart and will make sure that the patient’s urgent cardiac situation is taken care of. A patient of our practice can be certain that his/her cardiac care and well-being are the concern and responsibility of both doctors who work as a team. In fact, reports of cardiac testing performed in our offices can be shared with the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center clinical web viewing system when necessary to allow other physicians caring for a patient to have immediate access to important cardiac test results (and of course, always with appropriate security to protect your privacy).

While many cardiac conditions do require invasive diagnostic testing or interventional procedures or surgeries, Drs. Caren and Urman will always make clear all alternative options when appropriate. When a cardiac condition can be handled with non-invasive options with as good of an expected outcome, they will advise so. If a patient’s condition would be better treated with invasive or surgical interventions, they will be the first to say so and refer the patient to the best cardiac sub-specialist available.

In addition to reading the latest cardiac scientific journals and literature, Drs. Caren and Urman, both regularly attend and participate in lectures and continuing cardiac education which allows them to be up-to-date on the latest in cardiac diagnostic and therapeutic care and techniques. Both of our doctors are on the attending staff of Cedars-Sinai Medical Center. The doctors do not consult on patients at any other hospital or medical facility.

Our office is equipped to provide for electrocardiograms (EKG’s), blood drawing, echocardiograms (ultrasound of the heart), stress testing including stress echo and nuclear myocardial perfusion stress tests, 24-hour ambulatory electrocardiographic (Holter) monitors and 30-day event recorders. (For higher-level diagnostic testing or invasive procedures, the doctors use the world-class facilities right near by.) We employ staff to perform these tests all business days of the week (with occasional Saturday hours for stress tests) for your convenience. Testing is performed in our office by very experienced and certified technicians. While affording our patients the latest in technology for excellent cardiac care, treating each patient with respect, kindness and compassion is still the foremost goal.

A warm and welcoming staff are trained to understand our patients concerns as though they were their concerns.

During regular business hours, patients’ phone calls are not routinely routed through an automated system as we believe you should be greeted warmly by a live person. After hours, urgent messages are received directly by the physician on call. We do ask our patients to use common sense and try to handle non-emergent issues during the day. Many problems can typically be evaluated in the office at a reasonable hour before it becomes an emergency in the middle of the night and/or can frequently wait until morning. If a truly urgent situation arises, our doctors do want to be contacted at any time to help take care of the problem. However, if a life-threatening condition exists, it is always safest to call 911 immediately to activate the emergency medical system, before trying to reach our doctors.

Please note: In an emergency, call 911 or go to your local emergency room.

While we pride ourselves on preventing serious cardiac conditions as much as possible, by nature, as cardiologists we still help to take care of patients with serious and complicated medical conditions. We also think that your time is quite valuable and try to disprove the reputation that doctors have for keeping patients waiting. We do our best to predict how long each patient will need with the doctor during their visit and we leave opening in our schedule to accommodate unexpected problems as they arise. Despite this, there still can occasionally be delays in the schedule and ask for your patience and understanding if and when they occur. We realize that should you ever find yourself as the one in need of an urgent visit or extra time with the doctor, you would appreciate this and be grateful that others were understanding while waiting.

While our doctors are often providing second-opinions themselves, if, at any time, you would like a second formal opinion regarding your condition, please do not hesitate to ask. We will offer you the names of competent cardiologists in your area and furnish them with our records.

We encourage you, during office visits, to ask for a full explanation of your medical problems. Do not leave with unanswered questions. You have a complete right to ask for all that we can answer concerning your condition. Please do understand however, that for more complex cases, it might be necessary to schedule a follow-up appointment to discuss other non-urgent questions at later time.