Today's topic is failure to diagnose heart attacks. What are they and why are they important? The failure to recognize a heart attack has significant, dramatic implications for ones patient. If a heart attack occurs, it can kill off a beneficial portion of the heart. And if it's not recognized either immediately just before it happens or at the time it is happening, the result might be devastating.
Let me tell you about a situation I recently handled involving a young man and a failure to diagnose a heart attack. The patient developed chest pain and went to his local emergency room. While from the emergency room they hooked him up to a cardiac monitor, and they drew his blood and did all forms of tests.
They realized that they needed more time to be able to correctly evaluate to determine whether he was, in fact, having a heart attack. The hospital was so concerned that they decided to admit him for the hospital to run additional tests. They had been going to get him do a stress test. They had been heading to get an echocardiogram, that's being a sonogram in the heart. They have been going to draw blood on the regular basis to determine whether or not specific enzyme levels have been rising, indicate that he may perhaps have a heart attack.
So what went wrong with this patient's care? It wasn't the screening that have been ordered. All of those testes had been appropriate and it was great medical procedure to try and do that. The dilemma arose as soon as the doctors had been interpreting people particular tests. They have been interpreted incorrectly. In fact, the computers had been reading abnormalities in these particular tests, but the doctors who were searching at them blew it off and said not a large deal. That may be artifact. That is insignificant. We do not care about that. The patient is normal. Everything is fine.
He followed up with his cardiologist a few weeks later and he told him he was even now obtaining some chest pain. The cardiologist never bothered to obtain the tests that was done at the hospital and based upon his unique testing realized that the patient was just fine. He told the patient to arrive back in a month. We'll examine you again.
The next month the patient returned, as directed, and again, he had the exact same time of complaints. You know, I have chest pain. I'm feeling uncomfortable. I don't know what is heading on. Again, the doctor pooh-poohed it and said not to worry, all of the testing prior to show you're fine.
The third time it happened again. He came back on the office created the complaints. The doctor mentioned not to worry about it, you are fine. Several days right after the last visit towards cardiologist, the patient formulated severe chest pain and issue breathing. He called an ambulance and was rushed to his local emergency room, which was exactly the place in which he were taken to earlier, several months earlier, to be fully evaluated. As soon as the doctors hooked him as much as all the monitors inside emergency room, they known he was having a massive heart attack and by that thing there was incredibly little they could do to save a excellent part of his heart.
It turns out over the next few days an additional diagnostic tests revealed that the patient had 3 arteries, 3 major coronary arteries that have been severely blocked. He had 3 blockages. And had this been identified three or four months earlier, the patient could have had an elective triple bypass surgery, which would have prevented what's knows as ischemia, a cutoff or a lack of blood flow on the heart, what caused him to get this massive heart attack. A majority of his heart was killed off, because of the lack of blood flow to the heart. And as a result of that this patient suffered each complication identified to mankind. So much so, that he ultimately was told that he needed to acquire a heart transplant.
This patient, unfortunately, is physically incapable of producing any sort of activity. He gets tired just from walking across the room. He requirements program to perform all sorts of daily activities. And it's tragic simply because as soon as we went to investigate and looked back at individuals medical records, we had doctors and experts in cardiology think about those people screening and they told us that these had been clearly abnormal. And even the pc confirmed that they have been abnormal, and also the doctors should have identified this. This was totally preventable. He could have had elective surgery, which would have prevented the heart attack and he would have been just fine. Unfortunately, for this young man and his loved ones he wasn't.
Let me tell you about a situation I recently handled involving a young man and a failure to diagnose a heart attack. The patient developed chest pain and went to his local emergency room. While from the emergency room they hooked him up to a cardiac monitor, and they drew his blood and did all forms of tests.
They realized that they needed more time to be able to correctly evaluate to determine whether he was, in fact, having a heart attack. The hospital was so concerned that they decided to admit him for the hospital to run additional tests. They had been going to get him do a stress test. They had been heading to get an echocardiogram, that's being a sonogram in the heart. They have been going to draw blood on the regular basis to determine whether or not specific enzyme levels have been rising, indicate that he may perhaps have a heart attack.
So what went wrong with this patient's care? It wasn't the screening that have been ordered. All of those testes had been appropriate and it was great medical procedure to try and do that. The dilemma arose as soon as the doctors had been interpreting people particular tests. They have been interpreted incorrectly. In fact, the computers had been reading abnormalities in these particular tests, but the doctors who were searching at them blew it off and said not a large deal. That may be artifact. That is insignificant. We do not care about that. The patient is normal. Everything is fine.
He followed up with his cardiologist a few weeks later and he told him he was even now obtaining some chest pain. The cardiologist never bothered to obtain the tests that was done at the hospital and based upon his unique testing realized that the patient was just fine. He told the patient to arrive back in a month. We'll examine you again.
The next month the patient returned, as directed, and again, he had the exact same time of complaints. You know, I have chest pain. I'm feeling uncomfortable. I don't know what is heading on. Again, the doctor pooh-poohed it and said not to worry, all of the testing prior to show you're fine.
The third time it happened again. He came back on the office created the complaints. The doctor mentioned not to worry about it, you are fine. Several days right after the last visit towards cardiologist, the patient formulated severe chest pain and issue breathing. He called an ambulance and was rushed to his local emergency room, which was exactly the place in which he were taken to earlier, several months earlier, to be fully evaluated. As soon as the doctors hooked him as much as all the monitors inside emergency room, they known he was having a massive heart attack and by that thing there was incredibly little they could do to save a excellent part of his heart.
It turns out over the next few days an additional diagnostic tests revealed that the patient had 3 arteries, 3 major coronary arteries that have been severely blocked. He had 3 blockages. And had this been identified three or four months earlier, the patient could have had an elective triple bypass surgery, which would have prevented what's knows as ischemia, a cutoff or a lack of blood flow on the heart, what caused him to get this massive heart attack. A majority of his heart was killed off, because of the lack of blood flow to the heart. And as a result of that this patient suffered each complication identified to mankind. So much so, that he ultimately was told that he needed to acquire a heart transplant.
This patient, unfortunately, is physically incapable of producing any sort of activity. He gets tired just from walking across the room. He requirements program to perform all sorts of daily activities. And it's tragic simply because as soon as we went to investigate and looked back at individuals medical records, we had doctors and experts in cardiology think about those people screening and they told us that these had been clearly abnormal. And even the pc confirmed that they have been abnormal, and also the doctors should have identified this. This was totally preventable. He could have had elective surgery, which would have prevented the heart attack and he would have been just fine. Unfortunately, for this young man and his loved ones he wasn't.
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