New cardiologist joins medical staff

January 20, 2010

A new cardiologist has joined the medical staff of Johnston Medical Center-Smithfield.

Dr. Matthew S. Forcina is in practice with Smithfield Heart & Vascular Associates. He is seeing patients at the practice’s new office on Berkshire Road in Smithfield and is doing procedures at the hospital on Mondays.

Dr. Forcina earned his bachelor’s degree from Yale University in 1995 and his medical degree in 2001 from Temple University in Philadelphia. In 2004, he completed an Internal Medicine internship and residency at Duke University Medical Center.

In 2007, Forcina graduated from a fellowship in cardiovascular disease at the William Beaumont Hospital in Michigan. He finished a sub-specialty fellowship in clinical cardiac electrophysiology at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston in 2009.
He is board certified in internal medicine and cardiovascular disease, and board eligible in cardiac electrophysiology.

Forcina says he chose the field of cardiology because it demands a combination of critical thinking and finely honed procedural skills. He adds that new and evolving technology can control and even cure heart diseases.

His clinical skills include implantation of cardiac devices, such as pacemakers and defibrillators, for the management of heart failure and prevention of sudden cardiac death.
Forcina also specializes in treating abnormal heart rhythms with catheter ablation, which offers the prospect of a cure for patients with health issues such as atrial fibrillation.
“The risk factors for atrial fibrillation are age and high blood pressure,” he says. “As the population ages, the prevalence of this disorder is predicted to more than double in the next 40 years.”