by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters ♥ July 15 , 2019
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 factoids and quotable quotes into just 22 short minutes. . Continue reading “This documentary film pulls no punches!”
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
This is my 863rd blog post here on Heart Sisters. That’s a lot of articles. Almost all of them so far are about women’s heart disease, or translating emerging cardiac research into plain language, or what it’s like for women when we suddenly become heart patients, or when we’re mistakenly told that our heart disease is not heart disease.
Never in the 11 years that I’ve been writing this blog have I felt like I’d run out of All Things Cardiac to write about. Until today. . . Continue reading “Scary times: living with (but not IN) fear “
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
Waiting for the other shoe to drop. The expression dates back to the early 1900s, from the description of hearing the loud ‘thump’ of an upstairs apartment neighbour loudly dropping one shoe onto a bedroom floor. It’s that state of suspended focus. Waiting. Waiting. Not knowing when that other shoe upstairs will finally drop so that you can roll over and go quietly back to sleep.
But you can’t know exactly when or even if you’ll hear that second ‘thump’. You can’t predict that outcome, any more than we can predict the emerging outcomes of our current COVID-19 virus scare. And waiting for outcomes can feel exhausting. . Continue reading “COVID-19: Can facts help to minimize fears?”
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
When McMaster University cardiologist Dr. Harriette Van Spall asked her Twitter followers recently to offer topic suggestions for the upcoming Heart Failure Summit, I responded with a suggestion of my own:
“Please please please can we STOP calling this condition heart FAILURE?” .
Continue reading “Is it finally time to change the name ‘heart FAILURE’?”
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
Emergency physician Dr. Pat Croskerry tells the story of the day he misdiagnosed a patient who was experiencing unstable angina – chest pain caused by coronary artery disease, and often a warning sign of oncoming heart attack. But this is what he’d said before sending that patient home:
“I’m not at all worried about your chest pain. You probably overexerted yourself and strained a muscle. My suspicion that this is coming from your heart is about zero.”
In a later interview with Dr. Jerome Groopman (author of a book I love called How Doctors Think), Dr. Croskerry explained how easily that misdiagnosis happened: Continue reading “Signals, noise, context – and your doctor’s brain”
