Today. Finally, a day off.
I could oversleep, roll out of bed, then make a pot of coffee — and prepare for a “do nothing” day.
But today is the day.
After dealing with more electrical problems on this 160,000-mile-plus car, I will say goodbye, turn in the keys, and walk away.
This car holds memories: Taking the kids to the beach. Driving to our last trip to the mountains. My best friend’s Miami …
The memories of a nurse’s old car
During the first six months as an ICU nurse, I vividly recall seeing my first balloon pump — a cardiac assist device sitting in the aorta that helps the heart pump blood more effectively and improves perfusion to the coronary arteries. I became mesmerized by the possibilities of mechanical circulatory support. I was nowhere near ready to tackle a patient like this independently, but I found myself immersed in all …
The story of my first balloon pump
An excerpt from Nick’s New Heart: 30 Years and Counting.
In January of 1991, at twenty-two months old, Nick had another heart catheterization. Andy and I had started thinking about the next stage of surgery to finish the heart repair. Just before Nick was discharged, I discussed it briefly with Dr. Kanter.
“Tell me when you would like to do …
The story of a heart transplant in a 1-year-old, as told by his mother
For the past year, we have been inundated with statistics about the impact of COVID-19 on our lives. Reports of daily case rates, hospitalizations, and deaths are so pervasive that they have become routine fodder for “water cooler” and dinner table conversations. Several early studies, looking at the pandemic’s secondary health implications, give us an inkling of just how broad and deep its impact has been.
Mental health
Perhaps the most visible …
The impact of COVID-19 on health conditions
At an early age, Tasha remembered looking up to her mama dressed in a crisp white uniform and a nursing cap placed perfectly upon her head — one bobby pin at a time. Tasha learned what sacrifice, responsibility, and dedication were all about.
She also knew her mama’s love for the nursing profession.
When Tasha was four years old, she used to say: “One day, I will be a nurse just like …
Hypertensive disorders with onset during pregnancies are among the leading causes of maternal and infant mortality and morbidity in the U.S. and can have far-reaching consequences for the long-term health of the mother and child.
In Dr. Jerome Adams’ recent Call to Action to recognize and address hypertension control as a public health priority, the former Surgeon General referenced the success of health care …
Hypertension is killing pregnant mothers. Blood pressure monitoring can help.
We swore an oath: “Primum non nocere” — First, do no harm. When pandemic stress began to bear down on our hospitals, we scrambled to manage the burden of volume and simultaneously mitigate the threat of contagion. In our war efforts, we donned our hazmat suits, and pleaded with everyone to do their part. We stopped most elective procedures and shut our doors to visitors, families, even volunteers. What we …
The pandemic plight of CHF: one center’s response
Yes Virginia, there are still some doctors who truly care for their patients.
On December 13, 1993, my husband Bill was playing golf. Early in his round, he suffered a massive heart attack. Bill was 56 years old. Thanks to the staff and emergency room staff’s quick action, Bill was stabilized by the ER physician. That same afternoon, Bill suffered a second heart attack, and Dr. Robert Barden performed Bill’s first angioplasty.
To make a …
“Please don’t go just yet. Promise you will come to see me again?” she asked, with a frail quiver in her voice.
“But of course, see you on my rounds tomorrow!” I replied, trying to sound cheery, as I turned to leave her negative pressure ICU room. I was doubtful if she would even remember my masked-gowned presence by the next day or even the next moment. For COVID with its …
Unmasking the faces of COVID: pages from a neurologist’s diary
From a medical perspective, Mr. G’s case seemed straightforward. His GFR had fallen. His kidneys were failing. Dialysis would be required as the best treatment for his renal condition.
When I met with Mr. G later in the afternoon, he was in despair. He could not see how dialysis would save his life and expressed anguish towards the idea of living the remainder of his life on dialysis. He deliberated declining …
If I listen hard enough, each patient has a sacred story to share
The cardiologist was called STAT to the ED for a 50-year-old man with an acute STEMI. The man arrested eight times in the ED, each time successfully resuscitated. He finally stabilized to where he could be moved to the cardiac cath lab. The cardiologist quickly met with the wife and told her the plans and that they would do everything possible to save her husband’s life. As he turned to …
The hug that reminded a cardiologist of the joy in medicine
Consider the following sports icons: tennis legend Billie Jean King, basketball veteran Larry Bird, triathlete Karsten Madsen, baseball pitcher Kenley Jansen, and cyclist champion Haimar Zubeldia.
What do all of these well-known professional athlete heroes have in common? They are athletes with atrial fibrillation, also called AFib. AFib is the most common heart rhythm disorder worldwide, accounting for 750,000 hospitalizations per year in the US alone. It is estimated that 6 …
Extreme athleticism and the risk of atrial fibrillation
It is stressful enough to live with heart disease. Now, with a global pandemic, access to health care providers has shifted from in-office to telemedicine in many instances. There are challenges for patients with heart disease in this context:
Pandemic challenges for patients with heart disease
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Vince Hamilton has no legs.
For that matter, he has lost the tips to most of his fingers as well. It made opening soda cans almost impossible. So when I saw him for the first time, my immediate reaction was one of sympathy.
He had been admitted from a nursing home with a swollen red finger nubbin. It wasn’t hard to figure out it wasn’t his first time around this rodeo from …
It seemed like an innocuous tweet. It was just a doctor, somewhere on Twitter, declaring that it was important to learn to quickly ascertain if patients were “sick or not sick.” It was sentence; perhaps two. It spoke volumes.
He was not suggesting that doctors needed to learn to quickly assess severity; to triage for treatment priority; to know when to send a patient to a specialist. Nope. It was “sick or not …
Patients don’t need quick diagnoses. They need accurate ones.
The academic medical community has drastically changed how we educate and share our ideas since the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Spring of 2020. The remote meeting, often conducted via Zoom or a similar web-based platform, has gone from a rare occurrence to the default manner in which we conduct business. As a full-time academic cardiologist with three children under six years old, to say evening meetings …
A female academic physician’s relationship with the remote meeting during COVID-19
As the mother of a child born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome, besides going through four open-heart surgeries and coding, my son has also had eight abdominal surgeries, including a Ladd’s procedure and resection of his colon. William also functions without his appendix, spleen, and gall bladder. In addition to every kind of therapy imaginable, he has had to endure pamidronate infusions, daily shots, G-tube feedings, and TPN. Who knows …
Thank you pediatric medical professionals, as we fondly bid you adieu
The patient arrived in cardiac arrest. He had been brought to our emergency department in the middle of the night. Although he had a significant cardiac history, including bypass surgery, he was only in his late 40s. His transport from his house to our department had been less than 10 minutes, and the pre-hospital team had done an excellent job of intubating this patient and establishing an IV to begin …
Letting a loved one witness resuscitation
During my first year of medical school, a professor in my clinical skills course shared a timeless adage in medicine: “If you listen closely enough to the patient, they will tell you the diagnosis.” I accepted this statement as a fact of medicine – if I could develop astute history taking skills in my first year, this skill would serve me well throughout my medical training. However, when I volunteered …
A medical student’s experience at an urban free clinic
Some people have high cholesterol but not much atherosclerosis. We think of their arteries as having nonstick surfaces. We know inflammation can predispose to plaque formation and plaque rupture, which is the trigger of most heart attacks.
We know statin drugs can prevent and reverse plaque buildup, and make existing plaque sturdier and less likely to rupture. These drugs lower blood levels of inflammatory substances. Most doctors focus on their cholesterol-lowering …
Consider the natural ways to prevent or reverse atherosclerosis
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