Atrial Contractions

Jasjit Walia asked:


Dr. Walia is a greatly acclaimed all-encompassing cardiologist. He is board certified in cardiovascular diseases and Internal Medicine. He is actively engaged in research and training of medical students, residents, fellows and other physicians. Dr. Walia is actively involved in research and training of medical students, residents, fellows and other physicians.

Dr. Walia is a fellow of American college of cardiology and board certified in nuclear cardiology. He received his medical degree from the M.B.B.S Government Medical College Punjab, India. His cardiology fellowship was performed at the Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan.

He has authored and co-authored a number scientific paper that includes:

1. Aortic rupture: Comparison of three imaging modalities Journal Emergency Radiology Issue Volume 13, published online: 29 June 2006

2. The Diagnosis of Cardiac Arrhythmias: A Multi-Center Randomized Study Comparing Mobile Cardiac Outpatient Telemetry versus Standard Loop Event Monitoring.

3. Investigator for -A-HeFT- Placebo-Controlled Trial of BiDil Added to Standard Therapy in African-American Patients with Heart Failure- published in the New England Journal of Medicine.

4. ACT–The purpose of this registry to produce a prospective, outcome-oriented registry of all patients implanted with an SJM ICD.

5. ULTRA- To reveal a difference in average ventricular voltage output over time for patients randomized to Automatic Capture ON versus patients randomized to Automatic Capture OFF.

6. OMNI- A post-market observational study with the aim of classifying therapy and diagnostic utilization in study participants implanted with study devices and to describe Implatable Cardioverter Defibrillator (ICD)

7. MEDTRONIC P3- To characterize the relationship between subject clinical profiles at implant as well as clinical outcome and clinical management practice patterns.

Jasjit Walia, M.D., M.B.A, F.A.C.C.

Trinitas Hospital, 225 Williamson Street, Elizabeth, NJ

Union Memorial Hospital, Union, NJ

St. James Hospital, Newark, NJ



Roberta

χ.ℓιкє α ℓιgнтє∂ ѕιℓнσυєттє.χ asked:


I’m about to start my final year in secondary school this September, and the prospect of college has come up. I want to become a cardiologist in the future, but I have no idea about what subjects I need to take in college. Thanks for any help.

Scott

Ravi asked:


Recently, separate reports were released from the Harvard School of Public Health (in the Journal of the American Medical Association) and by the Institute of Medicine on the health effects of eating fish.

 

The Harvard report, which was based on a review of medical literature, was all but glowing in its endorsement of fish. The authors concluded that a modest intake of fish and shellfish, defined as one or two servings per week, was associated with a significant drop in mortality from heart disease, and in overall mortality. They brushed off the potential health risks from mercury and other contaminants in seafood as being low, and in any case, being overwhelmed by the health benefits.

 

The IOM report was far less glowing in its endorsement of seafood. The IOM found, in an extensive 400-page report (an executive summary of which can be found here), that eating fish “may reduce people’s overall risk for developing heart disease,” but that firm data proving that fish can strongly impact health are lacking. Likewise, they cited a lack of objective evidence regarding the risks of eating seafood, and in particular, a lack of reliable information on the distribution of contaminants in seafood.

 

They concluded that it is probably healthful for most individuals to eat two 3-ounce servings of seafood per week, including up to 6 ounces of albacore tuna, but that large predatory fish such as shark, swordfish, tilefish or king mackerel should be avoided. These conclusions are consistent with prior recommendations released by the Food and Drug Administration.

 

An article in The New York Times picked up on the variance between these two high-profile reports, and described the reaction of several environmental and consumer groups to these reports. That reaction can be summarized as follows: both reports are objectionable because they underplay the risks associated with consuming seafood, in particular the risk of mercury. The Harvard report is additionally objectionable because it vastly overplays the benefits of eating seafood.



Jorge

w3597513 asked:


aww i wish i could take latin. the teacher might leave. we have to take a foriegn language for 2 years. If she leaves after my first year, then i just wasted a year.

Elizabeth

stillkickin242 asked:


I am a pre-PA student and I am really interested in working in pediatric cardiology once I am a PA. I have done lots of research, so I know most of the basics, but I was wondering if anyone had any extra input on this area of medicine. What are some good web resources about it? What is a day in the life of a PA working in pediatric cardiology like? What type of pre-PA job experience will best prepare me to work in pediatric cardiology? Any information would be really helpful! Thanks!

Hector

Barbara asked:


(Balloon Atrial Septostomy, PDA Coil Occlussion, Valvuloplasty and others)

Justin

Shawn C asked:


To become a cardiologist, that is

Jesus

Dx forever. asked:


if you have experience tell me how they are.

and how much they earn?
anyway i love the medical field and i cant wait to choose my field.

Darryl

sheba asked:


I am currently going to school for both, but have no previous experience in medical field. I am freaking out that I will never get a job once I get the certificates. Living in Chicago area.

Irene

Michael Ozner, Md, Facc, Faha asked:


The most serious problem with the widespread use of CAT scans is the radiation these devices leave in our bodies. CAT scans are not simple chest X-rays, which deliver only a small amount of radiation. Instead, they expose the patient to a significant amount of radiation, and radiation in significant doses has been shown to increase the risk of cancer.

We are all exposed to “natural background radiation” — that is, radiation from the sun, radon gas, rocks in the ground, cosmic rays, and other sources that usually can’t be avoided in our daily lives. Radiation is measured in units called “millisieverts” (mSv), and we can use millisieverts to compare this natural radiation to the levels of radiation we get from other sources, such as medical tests. For instance, a chest X-ray provides about 0.02 mSv, or the equivalent of 2.4 days of natural background radiation. A CAT scan of the abdomen, on the other hand, provides about 10.0 m5v, or the equivalent of 500 chest X-rays or 3.3 years of natural background radiation. And a 64-slice wholebody CAT scan provides 15.2 m5v for men and 21.4 mSv for women (women’s denser body tissue and breasts require higher doses to get clear images) — quite a difference, especially when you realize that the radiation you receive is cumulative.

Now compare these numbers with the level of radiation to which Japanese survivors of the atomic bomb explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki were exposed: an average dose of between 5 and 20 mSv, with some doses as high as 50 mSv. A single CAT scan can easily exceed that average. And since radiation from all sources remains in our bodies for life, the likelihood of the average twenty-first-century patient matching or exceeding that average, even without a CAT scan, is very high. In the New York Times, Roni Caryn Rabin reported that recent studies indicate that the amount of radiation in the bodies of Americans increased 600 percent between 1980 and 2006, with the bulk of this increase attributed to diagnostic imaging procedures. In 1980 about 3 million of these procedures were performed, but by 2006 the number had skyrocketed to 62 million. If you were to follow some popular recommendations to have an animal CAT scan, plus one virtual colonoscopy and a coronary angiogram (both of which also deliver large doses of radiation), in the space of only a few years you could easily be exposed to more radiation than even the most highly exposed Hiroshima survivor.

The World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences have all classified X-rays as carcinogens based on the fact that they have been linked to leukemia and cancers of the breast, lungs, and thyroid. The risk of a fatal cancer from a chest X-ray has been estimated as one in a million or morein other words, very remote. But the risk of a fatal cancer in a person who has had just one of these new 64-slice CAT scans is estimated to be one in 2,000. In one study reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association, the risk of cancer in people having 64-slice CAT scans of the heart was found to be greater for young women than young men. Researchers found that one of every 143 women scanned at age twenty will develop cancer, usually breast cancer; the risk for forty-year-old women falls to one in 284. For men, the cancer risk was one in 686 for a twenty-year-old, and one in 1,007 for a forty-year-old. The reason for the gender difference in risk lies in the fact that breast tissue is very sensitive to radiation and the heart can’t be scanned without radiation exposure to breast tissue. Clearly, administering CAT scans simply for screening is a risk we shouldn’t be recommending people take.

There is no level of radiation exposure below which you can assume you’re safe. Of course, everyone is different and no one will be affected by radiation in the same way. And when we talk about the radiation doses for various medical procedures, we are always talking about estimates rather than exact figures. Depending on where you have your CAT scan done, who is performing it, what machine is being used, and what condition is being screened for, the doses can vary. But radiation interferes with the body’s natural immune system the same way regardless of dose. Your body keeps you healthy by attacking free radicals, scavengers, and cancer cells inside you, but its resources are finite. A sudden blast of radiation can be just the impetus needed to allow leukemia, breast cancer, or some other cancer to begin developing.

Cost

When CAT scan machines were first widely introduced in the early 1980s, they were heavily publicized and marketed. Because the scans were normally not covered by insurance, the cost was all out-of-pocket for the patient. So a lot of people, especially those who had cause to be worried about potential health risks due to family history, put thousands of dollars on the table — even if they couldn’t afford it — all because they and their families believed the tests would “save their lives” by revealing hidden life-threatening conditions. Some of my own patients told me that imaging centers had charged them up to $2,500 for a single scan; other patients have reported paying anywhere from $500 to $5,000. And many of these centers were not run by doctors but by business people who were very aggressive in their marketing.

Hospitals, doctors, and scanning centers had invested several million dollars in each one of these scanners, and naturally they wanted to recoup their costs. So there was a lot of pressure put on patients to have CAT scans when they may not have needed them and a lot of marketing done to doctors about how they could double their income by using these machines in their practices. The dangers were being completely ignored. Unfortunately, this is still largely the case.

Effectiveness

Here’s what most people do not realize: there is absolutely no data to prove that CAT scans are medically useful for people who do not have any symptoms. According to the FDA website:

The FDA has never approved CT for screening any part of the body for any specific disease, let alone for screening the whole body when there are no specific symptoms of disease at all. No manufacturer has submitted data to FDA to support the safety and efficacy of screening claims for whole-body CT screening.

They further state:

the FDA knows of no data demonstrating that whole-body CT screening is effective in detecting any particular disease early enough for the disease to be managed, treated, or cured and advantageously spare a person at least some of the detriment associated with serious illness or premature death.

In addition, the American College of Radiology, the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association, the American Association of Physicists in Medicine, and the American Medical Association, among others, do not recommend CAT scans. Medicare and most insurance companies do not cover CAT scans for screening because the tests have never been shown to provide information in addition to what we can already learn through doing a medical history, a physical exam, and blood tests.

The above is an excerpt from the book The Great American Heart Hoax

by Michael Ozner, MD, FACC, FAHA

Published by BenBella Books;  December 2008;$24.95US/$27.95CAN; 978-1-933771-54-0

Copyright © 2008 Michael Ozner, MD, FACC, FAHA

Author Bio

Michael Ozner, MD, FACC, FAHA, is one of America’s leading advocates for heart disease prevention. Dr. Ozner is a board-certified cardiologist, a Fellow of the American College of Cardiology and of the American Heart Association, medical director of Wellness & Prevention at Baptist Health South Florida and a well-known regional and national speaker in the field of preventive cardiology. He is the medical director of the Cardiovascular Prevention Institute of South Florida and symposium director for “Cardiovascular Disease Prevention,” an annual international meeting highlighting advances in preventive cardiology. He was the recipient of the 2008 American Heart Association Humanitarian Award. Dr. Ozner is also the author of the BenBella Books title The Miami Mediterranean Diet.



Beverly