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 ““A Typical Heart” – this documentary film pulls no punches!”
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters 
“From my earliest days in medicine, I have struggled against the prevailing model of health care” is how the pioneering cardiologist Dr. Bernard Lown sums up his long and impressive career as a rebel.
Dr. Lown is now Professor of Cardiology Emeritus at Harvard, but to me he is the physician I love to quote here on Heart Sisters – as in my blog post title, “Why Aren’t More Doctors Like Dr. Bernard Lown?“ Continue reading “Bed rest and other kinds of cardiac overtreatment”
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
When my heart sister Katherine Leon was featured in The New York Times earlier this year, I was thrilled. Katherine, like me, is a graduate of the WomenHeart Science & Leadership patient advocacy training at Mayo Clinic. She told the Times of undergoing emergency coronary bypass surgery at age 38, several days after her textbook cardiac symptoms had first been dismissed by doctors who told her, “There’s nothing wrong with you.” .
Continue reading ““There is no gender bias in medicine. Because I said so…””
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
One of the first places that a cardiac diagnosis starts to change the lives of women who have it is in the kitchen. Suddenly, it can seem that everything you now choose to eat will either help your heart, or kill you dead. After my daughter Larissa flew home after my own heart attack, for example, she wrote out a hand-written list (still up on my fridge door, by the way) sternly dictating, among many, many other food rules, things like: “From now on, only low-fat cheese, <20% fat!”
This was a problem for me at the time. Have you ever actually tasted low-fat cheese? It is a hideous food-like product. I pictured a dreary future learning to live on lentils and kale smoothies and other foods I do not want to eat. . . . Continue reading “30-Minute Heart Healthy Cookbook: a review”
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
The “new normal”. It’s what the freshly-diagnosed heart patient is supposed to get used to now. The implication seems clear: “Forget about your old life and the person you once were.” Many of us fight that “new normal” label, but there might be another way to look at this. . Continue reading “The “new normal” – and why patients hate it”
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
I read an article in The Guardian recently. It happened to be about menopause, a stage of life I have already graduated from (thank goodness!) But it was still interesting to me, as a person who once exhibited world-class projectile sweating during an event at which I was the guest of honour.
But that’s another menopause story entirely.
One particular line of this article leaped out at me. Not about menopause at all, actually, but about women who have opinions. . Continue reading “While we’re at it – and I am always at it…”
