Salem resident Frank Curtin, then 56, was in cardiac arrest when he arrived at Salem Hospital.

I ended up crashing right in the lobby of the emergency room, Curtin explained. The next thing I remember is I was on the table. They were doing chest compressions on me.

The doctors went through resuscitation for the next 15 to 20 minutes to try to get his pulse back.

We were working tirelessly to get him back to his family, said Dr. Lola Ojutalayo, explaining that they immediately contacted Medflight to transport him to Mass General Hospital where he recovered thanks to the treatment at both Salem and Boston.

Franks story is one of thousands where a life was saved because of the quality care from a team of board certified cardiologists at Salem Hospital and their partnership with Mass General Brigham.

This team is being led by two women of color who are determined to change the narrative around women in leadership: Chief of Cardiology Sohah N. Iqbal, MD, and Medical Director Lola Ojutalayo, MD.

Historically, cardiology has been mostly an all boys club, explained Ojutalayo, who lives in North Reading.

Ojutalayo was born in the U.K. while her parents studied in London but identify as Nigerian American. She moved to New Jersey when she was 12 years old and eventually completed her medical training at Drexel University College of Medicine Philadelphia, where she had her two sons.

I love spending time with them and traveling to learn new cultures, Ojutalayo said.

She has also held positions as an Interventional Cardiologist at St. Josephs Health in New York and at Mass. General Hospital.

According to a 2021 article published in the Journal of the American Heart Association, while 50% of medical school graduates in the United States are women, only 21% of cardiology fellowships are awarded to women and only 13% of practicing cardiologists are women. Among operators who perform coronary interventional procedures in the U.S., only 4.5% are women.

Despite efforts from U.S. professional societies to better engage and support women in cardiology, these numbers remain unchanged over the past several years and have been referred to as the leaky pipeline, the article reads.

Iqbal, who has worked at Salem Hospital since 2020, went to college at MIT, completed her medical school at Harvard and then moved to New York for residency at Columbia. Before moving back to Boston, Iqbal completed a cardiology fellowship at New York University where she stayed on as faculty for a decade.

While being the first woman to train in interventional cardiology at a past institution, Iqbal, who now lives in Marblehead, was told by the men who trained her that she wouldnt be able to do it and that she should do things like a man in the cardiac catheterization laboratory.

Words to describe women in the workplace included cupcake and bossy, she explained.

But that didnt stop her from pursuing her passion.

My passion for what I do and the patients I serve has always driven me to want to improve systems. Iqbal said. I needed to find a professional home that would be open to my ideas and not threatened by them.

Salem Hospital is definitely that place, she added.

In 2022, the U.S. News and World Report named Salem Hospital a high-performing hospital, which is the highest award a hospital can receive for U.S. News Best Hospitals Procedures and Conditions ratings.

We are very proud that the exceptional care we offer at Salem Hospital is recognized on a national scale, says Roxanne Ruppel, President and Chief Operating Officer of Salem Hospital. It is a tribute to our extraordinary nurses, physicians and staff who, even during the COVID-19 pandemic, continued to meet the highest standards of care.

The hospital provides fully integrated cardiac evaluation and treatment to North Shore patients including angioplasty, cardiac ablation, cardiac catheterization, cardiac evaluation and testing, cardiac rehabilitation, electrophysiology and percutaneous coronary interventions and stents.

We have such a special community here and I feel lucky to work here, Iqbal said.

Iqbal and Ojutalayo have worked alongside former director Dr. Howard Waldman and Dr. Pat Gordan to develop the Impella and Mobile ECMO programs two devices that make Salem Hospital a leading medical center for critical care.

Iqbal explained that the Impella device is a tiny heart pump that is used to help maintain blood flow during high-risk protected percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI).

The second program is the mobile ECMO program, which stands for extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. The ECMO machine is designed to support critically ill patients by providing cardiopulmonary functions normally performed by the patients hearts and lungs. ECMO can support the heart, lungs, or both.

While Iqbal and Ojutalayo have had to navigate the challenges of working in a male-dominated industry, they have hope for the next generation of female cardiologists.

Unfair as it may be, you push through these biases by working harder, Ojutalayo explained. You go the extra mile to prove yourself. You utilize the resources around you the best that you can. Most of all, you value the people around you who see you, embrace your uniqueness and want to see you succeed.

The hope is that in the future that it might be a little different for those coming behind us, she added.

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Getting to the heart of it: Leading cardiologists share the journey of care - The Salem News