Category: Cardiology 101

posts here focus on a variety of topics all about the heart and how it works

Is heart “FAILURE” out? And heart “FUNCTION” in?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 11 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥   @HeartSisters   

Recently, I was thrilled to read that New York cardiologist Dr. Anu Lala-Trindade had asked her audience at a heart failure conference in Cleveland why physicians were still using the word “FAILURE” to describe this condition.  As she smartly pointed out to her colleagues, pulmonologists who specialize in treating lung problems are not called “lung failure doctors”. Podiatrists who specialize in foot problems aren’t “foot failure doctors”. You get the drift.  Yet every day, cardiologists (mostly in North America) are still telling their patients out loud that their hearts are “FAILING” – as if they aren’t actually paying attention to the words they’re using.       .   Continue reading “Is heart “FAILURE” out? And heart “FUNCTION” in?” →

Pre-hospital care: can paramedics influence your cardiac future?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 9 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥   @HeartSisters

Helen A. (pictured here) is a longtime Heart Sisters reader from North Carolina. (My other regular readers may remember Helen’s heart patient story a few years ago in The Handlebar-Gripping Cardiac Symptom). Helen asked me recently if I’d ever written about the influence of paramedics on subsequent medical care. Here’s how she started her message:

“We called 911 because I was having heart attack symptoms, but by the time we arrived at the hospital, the paramedic had decided nothing really serious was going on, and he made me get out of the ambulance and walk into the Emergency Department.” 

Unfortunately for Helen, however, something “really serious” was in fact going on. Continue reading “Pre-hospital care: can paramedics influence your cardiac future?” →

Dear Carolyn: “Two sisters, one ‘heart-charged’ cardiac diagnosis”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 14 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥  @HeartSisters

.            .Bethany (left) and Hannah Keime (right)

As part of our occasional “Dear Carolyn” series of personal patient perspectives shared by my readers, today I’m introducing you to the 13th of our series: two young Florida women, Bethany and Hannah Keime, sisters diagnosed four days apart with a serious cardiac condition called hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM).  As described by Mayo Clinic cardiologists, HCM is defined as a heart muscle that becomes thickened, making it harder for the heart to pump blood.

Some people with HCM have few if any warning symptoms, while others may experience palpitations, shortness of breath, fainting or chest pain (especially during exercise) or changes in the heart’s electrical function. Those changes can result in dangerous irregular heart rhythms or sudden death. Because HCM is usually genetic (but not always – Mayo Clinic suggests that “not everyone with HCM has a currently detectable gene mutation”), people with one parent diagnosed with HCM have a 50% chance of having the genetic mutation. Parents, children or siblings of anybody diagnosed with hypertrophic cardiomyopathy should ask their doctor about screening for this disease. Here’s how the Keime sisters individually explained their shared diagnosis: Continue reading “Dear Carolyn: “Two sisters, one ‘heart-charged’ cardiac diagnosis”” →

Nine lessons about women’s heart disease that future doctors will learn in med school

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 6 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥  @HeartSisters

A cardiologist who teaches medical students at a prominent medical school was asked if his students were learning about the known disparities in cardiac research, diagnostics, treatment and outcomes in female heart patients compared to our male counterparts. His answer basically was: “If we start taking up time to talk about women, we’d have to stop teaching one of the equally important subjects in our curriculum.”  See also: Women’s Heart Health: Why it’s NOT a Zero Sum Game

That reluctant conversation-stopper may help to explain what cardiac researchers keep reminding us:  physicians now in practice likely received little if any specific med school training in women’s health aside from reproductive health issues. And as Emergency physician Dr. Alyson McGregor at Brown University reminds her colleagues:

“Women are NOT just men with boobs and tubes.”   

Continue reading “Nine lessons about women’s heart disease that future doctors will learn in med school” →