Month: March 2014

When your “significant EKG changes” are missed

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 25 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

A new cardiac study out of Montréal tells us yet again what women heart patients have already known for years: women receive poorer care during a heart attack than our male counterparts do. Quelle surprise . . .  But one specific finding caught my eye: one of the cardiac procedures that these researchers compared in this study was the use of the diagnostic electrocardiogram test (ECG or EKG) in male and female heart attack patients.(1)

They found that women were less likely than men to receive an electrocardiogram within the recommended 10 minutes of arriving in hospital with suspected cardiac symptoms.

It turns out, however, that even when we do finally get hooked up to a 12-lead EKG in a hospital’s Emergency Department, the doctors there may not be able to correctly interpret the “significant EKG changes” that identify heart disease. Continue reading “When your “significant EKG changes” are missed” →

Cardiac gender bias: we need less TALK and more WALK

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 21 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

News flash! Yet another new cardiac study from yet another group of respected Montréal researchers has been published in yet another medical journal suggesting that (…wait for it!) women receive poorer care during a heart attack compared to our male counterparts.(1)

As my irreverent Mayo Clinic heart sister Laura Haywood-Cory (who survived a heart attack at age 40 caused by Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection) once observed in response to a 2011 Heart Sisters post:

“We really don’t need yet another study that basically comes down to: ‘Sucks to be female. Better luck next life!’, do we?”

Well, Laura – apparently we do.  Because those studies just keep on coming.         . Continue reading “Cardiac gender bias: we need less TALK and more WALK” →

“I’m the least depressed person on earth, except when I’m depressed”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 6 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥  @HeartSisters

When I learned that Dr. Sherwin Nuland was going to be doing a guest lecture at the University of Victoria here back in 2012, I was among the first in town to book tickets. I loved his book called How We Die (a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize) ever since I’d featured his chapter on death and heart disease three years earlier here.

His sold-out UVic audience was enthralled by his engaging manner and compelling excerpts read from his newest book called The Art of Aging: A Doctor’s Prescription for Well-Being.

But I was even more intrigued by this famous surgeon/Yale University professor’s personal stories of his own experience living with debilitating depression – a depression so crippling, so impossible to shift, that in his 40s, his doctors even considered doing a pre-frontal lobotomy.   Continue reading ““I’m the least depressed person on earth, except when I’m depressed”” →

Dr. John Mandrola: “AFib is your body talking to you”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 33 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥ @HeartSisters

If you or somebody you care about has been diagnosed with Atrial Fibrillation (AF),  you likely already know this about the diagnosis: it’s an irregular heart rhythm affecting the heart’s upper chambers (the right and left atria) – and it’s also the most common heart-related reason for hospital admission. As Kentucky cardiologist Dr. John Mandrola likes to describe the disorder:

“AF is both a disease and a consequence of actions. It’s your body talking to you.”

Dr. John is a bike racer and one of my favourite writers in cardiology. As my heart sister Jaynie Martz once sized up his writing: “concise, charming, compassionately light, adult-to-adult, uber-digestible with nary a whiff of condescension or pomposity.” Amen, Jaynie.  His particular cardiac specialty is electrophysiology, the diagnosis and treatment of heart rhythm disorders. Here’s his overall take on the diagnosis of atrial fibrillation, as delivered to a Utah conference of his fellow electrophysiologists recently: Continue reading “Dr. John Mandrola: “AFib is your body talking to you”” →