Adding more years to life vs. more life to years

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 7 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥   @HeartSisters

I’ve noticed that a specific conversation topic keeps popping up when my girlfriends of a certain age get together – particularly when we start comparing what we used to be able to do with what we’re able to do now.          .

Here’s just one simple example:  I used to be able to sit down on the floor and then casually stand up again without any help. Now, with a wonky left knee encased in a big skookum brace, plus two painful wrists (one sporting its own brace), I know those days are gone.  (Thank you, osteoarthritis!)  Yes, I might still be able to painfully get myself down onto the floor, but there’d better be two strong adults around to pull me back up by both arms.    .   Continue reading “Adding more years to life vs. more life to years” →

How blame-ridden language betrays patient-centred health care

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 18 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas    ♥   @HeartSisters

A recent editorial in the medical journal The Lancet (coincidentally, celebrating its 200th anniversary milestone this year) revisited a subject that’s been niggling at me and many others for years: what the authors called blame-ridden language – which they describe as being “pervasive throughout medicine.”(1)

Unintentionally hurtful words tripping lightly from the lips of physicians seem to be a routine part of medical life. For example, when doctors say harmless-sounding things like “Patient claims her pain is 10/10” , it implies that the patient is lying. In the real world, we would say “She is experiencing 10/10 pain”.

Or consider the word deny:  “Patient denies having fever or chills.”  In the real world, that word also hints at this patient being untrustworthy. As one patient clearly explained to researchers in 2021: (2) “I did not DENY these things.  I said I didn’t feel them. Completely different!  Language matters.”              .
 Continue reading “How blame-ridden language betrays patient-centred health care” →

Congenital Heart Disease: the poor cousin of childhood diagnoses?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 3 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥   @HeartSisters

I know that every cardiac diagnosis is frightening, but I suspect that congenital heart disease (CHD) may be the most frightening if the patient is your own child. The word “congenital” means “present at birth” – although sometimes the problem doesn’t show up until babies  are older, even into adulthood. When I first wrote about CHD here on Heart Sisters, I learned that there are now more adults than children living with CHD. Like many people, I’d associated congenital heart disease with photos of tiny babies recuperating from open heart surgery. Cardiac researchers in Texas called this growing adult population “the product of the astounding success of pediatric cardiac surgery.”1

Surgical advancements have indeed kept little heart patients alive far beyond the early days of pediatric surgeries. But what’s still missing from this good news is the reality that little heart patients grow up to be big heart patients – with one remarkable difference. Unlike in other cardiac diagnoses, people who were born with CHD are far less likely than the rest of us to receive the ongoing cardiac follow-up care that I and other heart patients take for granted.
Continue reading “Congenital Heart Disease: the poor cousin of childhood diagnoses?” →

Is heart “FAILURE” out? And heart “FUNCTION” in?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 11 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥   @HeartSisters   

Recently, I was thrilled to read that New York cardiologist Dr. Anu Lala-Trindade had asked her audience at a heart failure conference in Cleveland why physicians were still using the word “FAILURE” to describe this condition.  As she smartly pointed out to her colleagues, pulmonologists who specialize in treating lung problems are not called “lung failure doctors”. Podiatrists who specialize in foot problems aren’t “foot failure doctors”. You get the drift.  Yet every day, cardiologists (mostly in North America) are still telling their patients out loud that their hearts are “FAILING” – as if they aren’t actually paying attention to the words they’re using.       .   Continue reading “Is heart “FAILURE” out? And heart “FUNCTION” in?” →