by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
In 2018, Dr. Dhruv Khullar warned his colleagues at an American Board of Internal Medicine conference that patients need answers on three dimensions of trust:
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
Remember last month when I covered the topic of “stretch pain” in heart patients who have had a coronary stent implanted?
To recap, temporary post-stent stretch pain in the chest is considered to be due to the dilation (stretching) of an artery while a metal stent is being implanted inside that artery, and it typically occurs in about 40 per cent of stent patients.1 A number of you wrote in with some variation of this question: “Is it still stretch pain if it’s happening months afterwards?”
And now a new study published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology suggests that something entirely different might be going on.2 Continue reading “Coronary stents: interventions that come with a cost”
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
Dear Doctor,
Several years ago, when the British Medical Association openly warned U.K. docs and med students NOT to make “personal or derogatory comments” online about their patients (guidelines mercifully updated since then), I became even more alarmed than I had been. Why, I wondered at the time, was it even necessary to issue this warning to intelligent, educated brainiacs who practice medicine? And are there some physicians who should simply not be allowed on social media?
Lately, I’ve been rethinking my former alarm. And the reason for the rethink is this: I’ve noticed that many of you physicians might be in danger of abdicating your traditional role as our medical educators. . . Continue reading “Dear Doctor – here’s why we need you on social media”
You’ve just undergone surgery. Somehow, a mistake was made. The result is that you were harmed when you expected to be healed.
Hurt, angry and scared, you look to your doctors and ask: “What now? What do you have to say?” And they are silent. . Continue reading “Why is it so hard for your doctor to apologize?”
Heart Sisters 