Heart Rhythm Medicine, Health, Cycling, Fitness.
Hey all, A couple of months ago I got a call from Dr. Rich Fogel, an electrophysiologist from St. Vincent’s Hospital in Indiana. He is an old friend from training days; I used to moonlight for his group. Now, Rich is on the leadership track in the Heart Rhythm Society and this year he is [...]
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Sorry this took most of the week to get out. (There was a good reason.) Better late than never I suppose. On Day 3 of the 2013 American College of Cardiology meeting, I woke up well rested and inspired to squeeze in as much learning as possible. The first order of business was putting the [...]
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The Internal Cardiac Defibrillator (ICD) can be a life-saving device. Many scientifically robust studies have demonstrated that when these machines are implanted in carefully selected patients, mortality is reduced. That is the upside–a big one for sure. The downsides of these devices are many. Our ability to predict which patient will eventually need a shock [...]
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It’s not normal for me to study the literature on pediatric cardiology. There’s more than enough medical science on adults to keep me busy. But this one on the quality of life in kids with cardiac devices caught my eye. Researchers found that kids with either pacemakers or ICDs (defibrillators) and their families reported significantly [...]
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At its core, this blog aims to do some good. I don’t like to ask for things. It’s not why I write. Today is an exception. I’m going to ask you to learn about and maybe support an important cause. The topic is sudden cardiac death–our number-one killer. There are a lot of folks working [...]
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If you have not already heard, there was more news (see theHeart.org) on the troubled St Jude Medical Riata family of ICD leads. The high voltage leads were recalled in December of 2011 and estimates are that 79,000 remain implanted. Perhaps more problematic for the company is the structural similarity of its current ICD lead [...]
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