– posts here focus on how to address your risk factors to help prevent heart disease
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
Here’s my prediction for this infectiously upbeat Walk The Heart Walk song: the impressive lead vocal harmonies of Vanderbilt Heart & Vascular Institute’s cardiology fellow Dr. David Kim and 4th year med student Laura Tortora are so good that these folks just might have a real future in music (in case that medicine thing doesn’t work out!) Continue reading “Get off that couch and “walk the heart walk””
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters
I find myself in an uneasy position since I survived a heart attack. After a rewarding 35+ year high-profile career in the public relations field, I am no longer able to go to work because of ongoing debilitating symptoms of coronary microvascular disease.
I was in deep denial about this turn of events in the early months, desperate to return to the work I loved and to those I loved working with.
I felt even crazily hopeful that I might be somehow able to feel “normal” again if only I could just get back to my office. Continue reading “How working – and not working – affects heart disease risk”
by Carolyn Thomas ♥ @HeartSisters 
Dr. Martin Seligman is considered the father of what’s known as the positive psychology movement. He was once elected president of the American Psychological Association by the largest vote in that organization’s history, which must have made this self-described “natural born pessimist” feel almost happy. He’s also the author of a book that I often recommend to heart patients called Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Your Life. This gem, originally published 20 years ago, is still a valuable tool for learning skills that decades of research have shown may actually enhance our sense of wellbeing – a commodity that’s in short supply for the freshly-diagnosed heart patient. Dr. Seligman lists some basic identifiable types of the elusive state we call happiness:
‘Happiness’ is a scientifically unwieldy notion, but there are three different forms of it you can pursue: Continue reading “Three types of heart happiness defined”
When Britain’s Dr. Richard Smith speaks, I like to listen. He’s a former editor of the British Medical Journal (and also, coincidentally, a former med school prof who in 2001 resigned from his University of Nottingham teaching post in protest over the school’s acceptance of a £3.8 million gift from a tobacco company). Dr. Smith now offers a cheeky yet revealing overview of what’s wrong with medicine. In fact, I feel compelled to share with you his recent BMJ article, published shortly after returning from the World Cardiology Congress in Dubai. He writes:
“Doctors are not interested in health“.
Continue reading “Former BMJ editor: “Doctors are not interested in health””
Heart Sisters 