– posts here focus on how difficult it often is to get an accurate heart disease diagnosis in women
February is Heart Month! Watch this compelling video for shocking updates on how women’s heart attack symptoms are often not taken seriously by medical professionals. Please help to increase awareness of women’s heart disease – our #1 killer – by spreading the word to as many women as possible. For more information, visit WomenHeart: The National Coalition For Women With Heart Disease.
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
The trouble with Dr. Jerome Groopman‘s book, How Doctors Think, is that the docs who really need it won’t read it. But patients will, thanks to word-of-mouth buzz since it was published in 2007.
As a patient who has experienced a life-threatening misdiagnosis while having a heart attack, my own favourite part of the book is Dr. Groopman’s review of physicians who take cognitive shortcuts during patient visits.
This means that doctors can jump to conclusions about diagnosis or treatment options, and then can’t budge even when contradictory evidence subsequently emerges. “Blame the 18 Second Rule!” advises Dr. Groopman, professor of medicine at Harvard.
” That’s the average time it takes a doctor to interrupt you as you’re describing your symptoms. By that point, he/she has in mind what the answer is, and that answer is probably right about 80% of the time.” Continue reading “The ’18 Second Rule’: why your doctor missed your heart disease diagnosis*”
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
Tragically, women may still come up short when it comes to the diagnosis and treatment of heart disease. Mayo Clinic’s Dr. Sharonne Hayes, cardiologist and founder of the Mayo Women’s Heart Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota spoke recently to staff from WomenHeart: The National Coalition for Women With Heart Disease .
Learn more here about why the inequities of this cardiology gender gap continue, and how women can empower themselves and others to achieve equal and quality care for their hearts: Continue reading “Heart disease – not just a man’s disease anymore”
Do you remember as little kids when we liked to spin round and round very fast so that when we stopped, we’d stagger around in a state of delicious dizziness? As adults, though, feeling dizzy is not fun. In fact, dizziness is responsible for millions of visits to hospital emergency departments each year. While most cases are likely caused by benign inner-ear balance problems, about 4% are signals of cardiovascular disease such as stroke or Transient Ischemic Attack (TIA – a condition that often warns of impending stroke in the coming days or weeks).
About half of these dizzy patients who are experiencing strokes show none of the classic stroke symptoms like one-sided weakness, numbness or speech problems. In fact, some estimates put the number of misdiagnoses as high as one-third, losing the chance for quick and effective stroke treatment.
Just as the rule for getting immediate help during a heart attack is: Time is muscle” – in stroke circles, doctors say: “Time is brain”. Continue reading “Cheap, quick bedside tests better than MRI in diagnosing strokes?”
Heart Sisters 