Category: Diagnosing – and misdiagnosing

– posts here focus on how difficult it often is to get an accurate heart disease diagnosis in women

“There is no gender bias in medicine. Because I said so…”

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 5 Comments

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…”” →

While we’re at it – and I am always at it…

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 18 Comments

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…” →

“A Typical Heart” Film Screening/Panel Discussion September 7th

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 6 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters   ♥  August 11, 2019

.UPDATE: This event was  FULL with a WAITLIST. Thanks to all who attended its first public screening in Canada! You can watch this film here.

♥

“A Typical Heart“  is a short but powerful documentary film about women’s #1 killer. Heart disease, in fact, will kill more women this year than all forms of cancer combined. Yet until very recently, cardiac research on diagnostic tools, drugs and procedures has been done only on (white, middle-aged) men.(1)  Even the lab  mice used in early cardiac research were exclusively male animals.(2 ) No wonder many women still consider heart disease to be a “man’s problem”.

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This remarkable documentary was the brainchild of paramedic and researcher Cristina D’Alessandro of York Region Paramedic Services north of Toronto, who first asked the profoundly important question:
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“If women make up over half our population, why are our heart attack symptoms still called ATYPICAL?”         Continue reading ““A Typical Heart” Film Screening/Panel Discussion September 7th” →

When women are far too busy to seek medical help

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 15 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥  @HeartSisters 

In the wonderful world of cardiology, we know that “time is muscle”. The faster a person in mid-heart attack can get prompt and effective treatment, the greater the likelihood of saving that heart muscle, and of survival itself. As Yale University researcher Dr. Angelo Alonzo has suggested, the weak link in the chain of events leading to prompt and effective cardiac treatment is often patient delay in seeking care (which I’ve written about lots because I was so good at this myself:  here, here and here, for example).  Ironically, even having “knowledge of symptoms or risk factors” does NOT decrease this pervasively common treatment-seeking delay behaviour.   . Continue reading “When women are far too busy to seek medical help” →