Category: Heart Sisters

– posts here focus on general topics about women and heart disease

Caring neglect: behaviours that lead us to believe our healthcare professionals don’t care

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 4 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas     ♥    Heart Sisters (on Blue Sky) 

A few years after I survived a misdiagnosed heart attack in 2008, I read a U.K. study focused on what researchers at the Institute of Social Psychology at the London School of Economics call Patient Neglect.(1)  This healthcare phenomenon includes both Procedural Neglect (“failing to achieve the objective standards of patient care”) and Caring Neglect (“behaviours that lead patients and observers to believe that staff have uncaring attitudes.”) Continue reading “Caring neglect: behaviours that lead us to believe our healthcare professionals don’t care” →

Pick one: non-human AI – or a real person?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 5 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas     ♥    Heart Sisters (on Blue Sky)

In 2008, I joined INSPIRE’S WomenHeart Online Support Community for Women with Heart Disease.  In those early days as a new survivor of what doctors call the “widow-maker”  heart attack, I was drawn to compelling narratives from other patients with lived experience similar to mine. Our group was both a safe place to vent when feeling bad, and an opportunity to lend comfort to others during their scary setbacks. It wasn’t long before I made browsing group discussions a daily early-morning habit. And one day I asked our group members  this basic question: “Has anybody here been misdiagnosed in mid-heart attack?” Continue reading “Pick one: non-human AI – or a real person?” →

Small kindness – big impact

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 4 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥   Heart Sisters (on Blue Sky) 

A study published by Swiss researchers suggests that a culture of kindness in health care has a positive impact on healthcare organizations, healthcare staff, and – best of all! –  patients.(1)  If we’re very lucky, many of us already know those benefits because of our lived experience with kind healthcare professionals. One of my own favourite examples of a small kindness that left a huge impression was the cardiac nurse who trotted alongside my hospital gurney – from the Emergency Department to the elevator taking us up to the cardiac cath lab during my 2008 heart attack – with her hand gently resting on my shoulder all the way. She assured me: “You’re in the right place now. We’re going to take good care of you.”  If only every hospital patient was greeted that way. Continue reading “Small kindness – big impact” →

Everything happens for a reason – or does it?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 7 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas     ♥    Heart Sisters (on Blue Sky) 

I’m inhaling a terrific book this week, page by page, line by line – and I’m enthusiastically recommending this funny, heartbreaking, important book to anybody who has ever faced a serious diagnosis (no matter the medical condition).  The author is Kate Bowler and this book is called “Everything Happens for a Reason – And Other Lies I’ve Loved.”   

Kate turns out to be the perfect person to write a book with that kind of in-your-face title. At the time, she was a professor at Duke University’s Divinity School, specializing in the study of what’s known as the Prosperity Gospel. This is a creed that sees our good fortune as a blessing from God, but sees misfortune as a mark of God’s disapproval. Kate now calls this creed “a branch of Christianity that promises a cure for tragedy.”     .
Continue reading “Everything happens for a reason – or does it?” →