What your patient is thinking: "My experience of stressed out staff..."

Growing up with pioneering treatment is the latest What your patient is thinking piece from The BMJ. It is written by Liza Morton who was the world's first 11 day old baby with congestive heart failure to be attached to an external cardiac pacemaker for complete heart block. She was fitted with five early implantable pacemakers  by thoracotomy before age 7, she had surgical repair of her atrial septal defect and her first variable rate pacemaker in her early teens, and four further variable rate pacemakers. She describes her childhood memories of being treated for congenital heart disease: “I remember lying still, surrounded by a team of men in white coats armed with a magnet, leads, cold gel, stethoscopes, and electrodes. They would make my heart beat faster, then slower, as they interrogated the pacemaker. I was a medical curiosity. I was also a little girl who just wanted to do things that other little girls took for granted. We were told I should be able to function normally, yet those early pacemakers were single chamber ones that propelled my heart to beat at a fixed rate whatever I did, limiting me physically. I turned blue when cold, vomited on overexertion, and often felt dizzy ... Instead of being told I should be able to lead a normal life, it would have helped me to have these obstacles validated so I was better supported to find my own way.” She goes on to advise doctors: “You also need to look ...
Source: Doc2Doc BMJ Cardiology - Category: Cardiology Authors: Source Type: forums