Learn more about Dr. Liti and her practice at https://www.elliothospital.org/Liti

Besiana Liti, D.O., a boardcertified noninvasive cardiologist, earned a B.S. in physiology at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale before receiving a Doctor of Osteopathy at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. She completed an internal medicine residency at Saint Vincent Hospital in Worcester and a cardiovascular fellowship at the University of Connecticut/Hartford Hospital in Hartford.

Dr. Liti specializes in noninvasive cardiology and cardiooncology.

“In the realm of noninvasive cardiology, a new field has opened up, which is cardiooncology, a specialty in which cardiologists focus on taking care of patients’ cardiac needs who are undergoing chemotherapy or radiation treatment for their cancers or patients who have had radiation treatment previously and need some form of assessment of their cardiac health,” she says. “We now know that people who have cancer have a higher risk of cardiac complications after treatment, while people with cardiac disease also have a higher risk of cancer because of shared risk factors, such as obesity and smoking.”

As Dr. Liti explained, with the establishment of cardiooncology as a subspecialty, “we are now recognizing that cancer and its treatments are causing shortterm and longterm cardiac complications.”

“From a learning standpoint, this is a field that is continuing to grow,” she says. “It has a lot of promise in terms of research and our ability to be there for patients to offer them treatment and reassurance.”

Dr. Liti says she chose cardiology because “she likes the fact that we can fix things right away at times and sometimes we follow patients longitudinally. It gives us the best of both worlds in a way.”

Her goal, she says, is to simplify for patients “what is happening and put things in easier terms for them to understand so that it’s not quite as overwhelming.” She is also fluent in Albanian, advanced level Italian and intermediate level Spanish.

For Dr. Liti the ideal patient/provider relationship “is one in which communication goes both ways. Our job as providers is to not just tell patients what the options are but to also listen to what they want to do,” she says. “I’m a big proponent of body autonomy and patient autonomy, allowing the patient to choose what they want the path to be so they will have peace of mind.”

She says, “I treat every single person like I would my own family.”