Tag: cardiology gender gap

“A Typical Heart”: how YOU can help create this documentary!

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 10 Comments

NEWS UPDATE:  “A Typical Heart” was awarded a $50,000 grant from Telus and StoryHive!  The 22-minute documentary was launched on July 15, 2019.

 

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters  ♥  July 30, 2018

Do you sometimes wish that everybody (and their healthcare providers) were more aware of the unique differences in male and female heart disease? …. 

I know you do! Cristina D’Alessandro is a Toronto-area paramedic and healthcare researcher who has that same wish. She’s a healthcare professional who, like so many of us, is concerned about what’s known as the “cardiology gender gap“ in diagnosing and treating women’s heart disease. She asks, for example, this brilliant question: 

“In paramedic school, they teach us about the ‘atypical’ signs of a woman’s heart attack. But why exactly do they call it ‘atypical’ when women are more than half the population?”

Continue reading ““A Typical Heart”: how YOU can help create this documentary!” →

Same heart attack, same misdiagnosis – but one big difference

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 37 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

Our two stories are freakishly the same in so many ways:

♥ In 58-year old Nancy Bradley’s story, she went to the Emergency Department at the Royal Inland Hospital near her home in Kamloops as soon as she felt alarming symptoms she knew might be heart-related: dizziness, sweating, shortness of breath and “an elephant sitting on my chest” feeling. (In my story, I was 58 as well, and I went to Emergency at the Royal Jubilee Hospital near my home in Victoria as soon as my own alarming heart attack symptoms started).

♥ All of Nancy’s cardiac diagnostic tests seemed to be “normal”. (All of my diagnostic tests seemed to be “normal”, too).

♥ Nancy’s Emergency physician suspected heartburn, and suggested she take antacid drugs. (My Emergency physician suspected heartburn, and suggested that I take antacids).  Continue reading “Same heart attack, same misdiagnosis – but one big difference” →

But what about the men?

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 8 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas   ♥  @HeartSisters

The irreverent Laura Haywood-Cory of North Carolina is, like me, a heart attack survivor and, also like me, a graduate of Mayo Clinic’s annual WomenHeart Science & Leadership Symposium for Women With Heart Disease in Rochester, Minnesota (where she’s also attended the Mayo Clinic Social Media Summit, too!)

Her own dramatic heart story is that of a terrifying condition usually seen in young, healthy women with few if any known cardiac risk factors: Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection or SCAD. I’m happy to say she has been making a heroic effort to beat this sucker into the ground; after surviving her heart attack at age 40, Laura completed the Chapel Hill Ramblin’ Rose Triathlon. But it’s her unique take on a surprisingly frequent response to women’s heart disease that I want to share with you today.  Laura wrote: Continue reading “But what about the men?” →

How implicit bias in medicine hurts women and minorities

~ Carolyn Thomas ~ 8 Comments

by Carolyn Thomas  ♥  @HeartSisters

It’s discouraging. I’ve read (and written) far too much about how the gender gap in cardiology has resulted in women heart patients being at higher risk of being both under-diagnosed compared to our male counterparts, and then under-treated even when we’re appropriately diagnosed (here,   here   and  here, for example). Studies even suggest that when physicians review case studies in which patients present with significant cardiac symptoms as well as a recent emotionally upsetting event (identical except for the patients’ male or female names), the doctors are significantly more likely to determine that a man’s symptoms are heart-related, but a woman’s symptoms are just due to the emotional upset.(1)

But what’s been missing in this acknowledged gender gap seems to be the most important part: why is this happening, and what can we do to actually address it? Continue reading “How implicit bias in medicine hurts women and minorities” →