by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
The important documentary film called “A Typical Heart“ is a triumph.
It’s about the deadly disparity in diagnosis, treatment and outcomes among male and female heart patients. It packs an incredible load of unforgettable facts and quotable quotes into just 22 short minutes. . Continue reading “This documentary film pulls no punches!”
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
Patients can sometimes be sickly people in bed, wearing embarrassingly undignified bum-baring hospital gowns.
Patients can also be experts in the lived experience of their own diagnoses, who contribute to medical research and education teams as partners in meaningful academic projects.
If you’re surprised by that last description, you’ll be even more surprised by all the things that many patient partners can do in life (besides laying around being sickly). . . Continue reading “Why patients don’t have admin assistants”
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
Mistakes happen in medicine, just like in every other workplace. As intensive care physician and president of The Doctors’ Association UK (DAUK) Dr. Samantha Batt-Rawden reminded us in a BBC Newsnight interview:
“If patients are looking for a doctor who has never made a mistake, they simply won‘t find one.” . . .
Continue reading “Learn or Blame: when mistakes happen in medicine”
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
Okay, that last one may seem trivial (but I was TOLD that deer won’t touch zinnias – which is apparently FALSE!) I have also noticed that my cardiac symptoms don’t even make that worry list these days. n . . Continue reading “Post-COVID handshakes: dread or delight?”
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
Sara Wyen is a writer and founder of Blood Clot Recovery Network, a site that helps patients through the recovery process from deep vein thrombosis* or pulmonary embolism*. Her own story about a freakishly heavy period while taking her anticoagulant medication is a good one to share with any women you know who are prescribed these drugs. . . Continue reading “Heavy menstrual cycles and those anticoagulant drugs you’re taking”
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
I was once asked by a U.S. publisher to review a new book written by a heart patient, a memoir about her surprising diagnosis. But about 12 pages in, she mentioned that she had been a chain-smoker for three decades before her “surprising” cardiac diagnosis. I had to re-read that line. How could a person who had been chain smoking for decades possibly be “surprised” by this predictable outcome? Didn’t this clearly intelligent, educated woman know that smoking is a dangerous risk factor for heart disease (and a whole bunch of other nasty health issues)? I thought of this book recently when a new study from Harvard researcher Dr. Catherine Kreatsoulas reported that women are in fact more likely than men to underestimate their own risk of heart disease. . . . Continue reading “Did you underestimate your cardiac risk?”
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
Welcome to Lotus Land, where, alas, it’s been stinkin’ hot lately. This is tragically unfair, I think. I moved here to Canada’s beautiful West Coast decades ago in order to escape the kind of soul-sucking sauna that passes for summer back east.
And because uncomfortably hot weather is so deliciously rare here, few of us even have air conditioning, although I do have a little electric fan that I’ve started carrying around the apartment with me from room to room this past week.
