Cardiology Contributors
Doctors Behaving Badly
As odd as this might sound, my mother was upset when I declared my intention to go to medical school. It wasn’t the mountain of debt I was sure to incur since I’d already figured out how to get Uncle Sam to pick up the bill (a small deal that put me in a military uniform for a decade). It wasn’t the fact that medical school would delay the litter of bouncing grandbabies she wanted to fawn over. And it certainly wasn’t because she’d miss me—she’d already seen too much … Continue reading
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Running Races
This summer marks the 25th straight year that I’ve been running on a regular basis. Over the last quarter of a century I’ve done so many five- and 10-kilometer races that I’ve lost count. I’ve competed in 10-milers, half-marathons, 3-k and 25-k runs and every “k” in between, and enough marathons that my knees are starting to hold a grudge. Not that I win any of these, mind you. I’ve always been a fairly mediocre runner—generally placing in the top third of any race but never talented enough to post … Continue reading
Smoking in the Military
The military has a long tradition of mixing warfare and tobacco. Years ago the army included a pack of smokes in every C-ration distributed to the troops; as a result it was more common for soldiers to take up smoking than to remain abstinent. The tobacco industry insured itself a whole generation of addicted consumers by volunteering their product to help the war effort. Years later, of course, we’ve inherited this tradition in the form of lung cancer, emphysema and heart disease among our veterans. When I was a young … Continue reading
Obstructive Sleep Apnea and Your Heart
I recently asked a patient about his compliance with therapy for obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) and got an odd response. “What does it matter to you if I use my CPAP?” The CPAP to which he referred is the mask that OSA sufferers wear at night to improve their oxygen levels during sleep. On one level I can understand his question. This is a sleeping problem, after all—not exactly the realm of cardiology. Why should I care if he starts his day refreshed or drags himself out of bed feeling … Continue reading
Unintended Consequences
Anyone who has flown on a commercial airline recently knows this story. You show up for your flight and are offered a choice: you can either pay an extra $25 to check your bags or try to pack all your vacation items into a rollerboard and schlep it on the plane with you. It didn’t use to be this way, of course. A couple of years ago an enterprising executive at one of the airlines decided that a clever way to enhance the company’s bottom line would be to charge … Continue reading
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