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For Dr. Alan Covin, the choice to narrow his field of practice after six years as an internist was about more than a change of pace. It was about survival.

“I decided I had to do something not to burn out,” said Covin, who worked as an internist and hospital intensivist before beginning a fellowship in cardiology.

Today, he is one of three cardiologists in private practice as HeartSouth. With Drs. John Lovejoy and Volkan Ozduran, he keeps a main office near the campus of Wesley Medical Center in Hattiesburg. The practice has also spawned several satellite clinics locally and around the state, including ophthalmology, neurology and internal medicine practices which are managed under HeartSouth Corp.

“In Hattiesburg, there has been a need for more primary care, so we went out and developed that by helping those primary-care physicians in their practices,” Covin said. “Some of them choose to be employed physicians while others we just help with their management. But either way, we build relationships with them and are able to see some of their patients when they need a cardiologist.”

Practicing in Hattiesburg since 1997, Covin is originally from Evergreen, Ala. He received his medical degree from the University of Southern Alabama in Mobile, Ala., where he also completed his internal medicine residency and cardiology fellowship.

Before moving to Hattiesburg, he practiced for two and a half years with a Pensacola, Fla.-based group in a satellite office in Foley, Ala.

Even though he’s spent more than a dozen years now as a specialist, his primary-care background continues to be at times both an obstacle and an asset.

“It’s been somewhat difficult, because I still have an internal medicine mindset sometimes,” he said. “It’s hard to separate out taking care of the heart from taking care of whole patients.”

At the same time, he says, the background helps him to deal personably with patients instead of focusing only on the procedures he performs.

“I think it makes me a little more aware of other problems,” he said. “I used to know about the treatments; now I know just enough, if there’s a problem, to call someone to help me.”

As cardiovascular specialists, Covin and his partners focus not only on the heart but also the entire vascular system. Heart catheterizations, coronary stent procedures and pacemaker implants still comprise most of his work at Wesley, but peripheral vascular procedures have become more common.

Covin is quick to downplay his role in introducing certain devices and procedures to the area. According to Wesley, he was the first doctor in Mississippi to use a new stent coated with the blood thinning agent heparin to reduce the risk of clot formation.

“Somebody’s got to be the first person to put one in — it’s no big deal,” he said.

“I do think some of what I’ve introduced here is a little more aggressive approach — trying to not just take care of the procedures, but also the cause of the procedures. Across the country, cardiologists are becoming more aware of lipids and cholesterol management and the role that it plays.”

At Wesley in 2006, Covin was the first physician in the region to implant the Contak Renewal 3RF cardiac resynchronization therapy device. Implanted near the heart, the wireless device uploads data directly from the patient’s home to the physician’s office.

“It helps us track the patients better, and allows them to travel across the country,” he said. “If they have a problem, they can get on the phone and contact us, and we can check the device and see what’s going on.

“They’re freer to have normal lives without having to come see us so often. We also have a better idea about when patients are beginning to go into heart failure — before they’re in the ER.”

More aggressive monitoring has been central to cardiology’s move from a focus on just the heart to the entire vascular bed, Covin said.

“If you have someone who has coronary artery disease, they often also have carotid artery or disease of the leg and other vessels,” he said. “We try to monitor those to prevent strokes and try to prevent the progression of leg disease.”

Lately, for Covin and his partners, keeping up with new technology and the evolution of cardiology practice has been one thing; keeping up with rising costs and falling reimbursements is quite another.

“It just is a real challenge right now to try to stay in business, with close to 100 employees and all the insurance costs and the bills from the vendors,” he said. “It’s just amazing how fast everything goes out and how slowly it comes in.”

Off hours, Covin spends time out on an old hunting club he purchased a few years ago, feeding deer and clearing a site for the house his family plans to build in the future. He also enjoys spending time outdoors and fishing on the Gulf of Mexico.

Covin and his wife, Liz, have two college-age children: Matt and Courtney.



February 2008

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