– posts here focus on general topics about women and heart disease
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
In his online essay called This Won’t Hurt A Bit, cardiologist Dr. Eric Van De Graaff tells his own story of being a hospital patient after surviving a motorcycle accident while he was in med school. His experiences as a patient will sound very familiar to heart patients, and the lessons he learned while on the other end of the stethoscope may very well have made him a far better doctor. For example: Continue reading “When doctors become patients”
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
I’m thrilled to celebrate having Heart Sisters featured in the February issue of More magazine (“Canada’s Magazine Celebrating Women Over 40”). It’s included in a Body+Mind piece called Health Bloggers You’ll Love – highlighting four Canadian women who have launched health-related blogs “not only to better themselves, but also to inspire others along the way”. Writer Sydney Loney interviewed me a few months ago for this profile – it’s great to see the magazine finally in the newsstand! Here’s what she had to say: Continue reading “‘Heart Sisters’ featured in More magazine’s February issue”
It’s distressingly common in cardiac circles to run into people who don’t have heart disease, but who are very certain that they do. When I first heard some of their stories, I suspected that these people are being misdiagnosed, but the reality may instead be that there’s no heart disease here at all.
This scenario came up recently with a woman with few if any cardiac symptoms, no definitive test results, and very little reason for believing she might have a heart condition. Yet she was so utterly convinced a heart attack was imminent that she described feeling like a “ticking time bomb”. A fellow heart attack survivor, far braver than I, suggested to this woman that she might be experiencing a phenomenon called catastrophizing. Continue reading ““Catastrophizing” – why we feel sicker than we actually are”
As every other magazine is publishing New Year’s editorials this month, the British medical journal Lancet has instead revisited the editorial from its January 1911 issue. Then-editor Squire Sprigge welcomed the new decade in an editorial titled, “The Promise of 1911”. Continue reading “The Lancet: “A New Year’s message from 100 years ago””
Heart Sisters 