Category: Women and heart attacks

– posts here focus on warning signs and symptoms women experience during a cardiac event

The “big disconnect” in women’s heart health

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 9 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

hearts sunday_link_loveDr. Holly Andersen is a New York cardiologist who once told a Clinton Health Matters conference audience how frustrating it feels when she is able to impact only the women who come in to see her. She believes that increasing public awareness of heart disease can save lives, and this must start with women. Dr. Holly likes to say that “if you can educate a woman, you educate the family.” Here’s her sobering take on what she calls the “big disconnect” in women’s heart disease awareness, prevention and treatment: * Continue reading “The “big disconnect” in women’s heart health” →

Two big factors that can impact a patient’s loss of ‘self’

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 10 Comments

heart-VILUCA-PIXABAY-1205291_1280

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

When California sociologist Dr. Kathy Charmaz studied the subject of suffering among those living with chronic illness, she identified an element of suffering that is often overlooked by health care providers.(1)  As she explained her findings:

”    A fundamental form of that suffering is the loss of self in chronically ill persons who observe their former self-images crumbling away without the simultaneous development of equally valued new ones.

“The experiences and meanings upon which these ill persons had built former positive self-images are no longer available to them.”

Dr. Charmaz also found that this profound sense of having lost the “self” you used to be before being diagnosed is generally the result of both external and internal influences on how we view ourselves.  Continue reading “Two big factors that can impact a patient’s loss of ‘self’” →

How these doctors have saved thousands of women

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 2 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas
A guest post by Dr. Annabelle Santos Volgman, McMullan-Eybel Chair for Excellence in Clinical Cardiology, Professor of Medicine, Rush College of Medicine, and Medical Director, Rush Heart Center for Women, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL; and Marissa Bergman, Associate Editor, Today’s Chicago Woman

“2013 was the first year since 1984 that fewer women died of heart disease than men(1)—despite being viewed as solely a man’s health issue. This decline was the result of the tireless work of a small group of women who have dedicated their lives to eradicating this misunderstanding and unequal treatment of women’s heart disease. Continue reading “How these doctors have saved thousands of women” →

Do NOT drive yourself to the E.R. in mid-heart attack!

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 19 Comments

screen-shot-2016-09-18-at-1-00-46-pm

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

I don’t know why this even needs saying, but apparently it does. People talking about heart patients with severe chest pain (or offering advice to heart patients with severe chest pain, or speaking onstage at Stanford University’s Medicine X conference showing this dreadful slide about heart patients with severe chest pain) must never – and I do mean NEVER – even hint that patients should drive themselves to hospital while experiencing “severe chest pain” unless you are “too dizzy to drive yourself”. 

REALITY UPDATE: I am posting this slide as a warning to others about giving bad advice, not to offer an opinion on hospitals that invest in patient communication tools, unless you are the hospital responsible for sending out that boneheaded text on the above slide.

Continue reading “Do NOT drive yourself to the E.R. in mid-heart attack!” →