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How to Service a Heart Attack
How to Survive a Heart Attack
When You Are Alone
What are you to do if you have a heart attack while you are alone? The Johnson City Medical Center staff actually discovered this and did an in-depth study on it in our ICU. The 2 individuals that discovered this then did an article on it, had it published and have had it incorporated into ACLS and CPR classes. It is very true and has and does work. It is called cough CPR. A cardiologist says it's the truth
Let's say it's 6:15 p.m. and you're driving home (alone of course), after an usually hard day on the job. You're really tired, upset and frustrated. Suddenly you start experiencing severe pain in your chest that starts to radiate out into your arm and up into your jaw. You are only about 5 miles from the hospital. Unfortunately you don't know if you'll be able to make it that far. What can you do?
You've been trained in CPR but the guy that taught the course didn't tell you what to do if it happened to yourself. Since many people are alone when they suffer a heart attack, this article seemed to be in order. Without help, the person whose heart is beating improperly and who begins to feel faint, has only about 10 seconds left before losing consciousness.
However, these victims can help themselves by coughing repeatedly and very vigorously. A deep breath should be taken before each cough, and the cough must be deep and prolonged, as when producing sputum from deep inside the chest. A breath and a cough must be repeated about every 2 seconds without let up until help arrives, or until the heart is felt to be beating normally again.
Deep breaths get oxygen into the lungs and coughing movements squeeze the heart and keep the blood circulating. The squeezing pressure on the heart also helps it regain normal rhythm. In this way, heart attack victims can get to a hospital.
From Health Cares, Rochester General Hospital via Chapter 240s newsletter ' AND THE BEAT GOES ON ' (reprint from The Mended Hearts, Inc. Publication, Heart Response)
Doctors Fight Medical Reviews
Doctors Fight Medical Reviews
The Internet gives people the opportunity to express their opinions about many issues, some deadly serious, some silly. When it comes to your medical care and health, you deserve and should have access to all the information you can get.
There are several ways to do this:
1. Read online reviews of doctors and hospitals. These, though, are not always unbiased. Some review sites charges the medical profession a fee to access "confidential" information not available to the public. They do not need to state what such information is, nor how much is charged. Consumers must consider that such payment may skew the tone or the content of the review.
2. Purchase a review from a commercial medical site. If you use a search engine looking for a specific doctor, you will probably find the name many times. Some of these sites promise to provide detailed information about the doctor (or hospital or practice) including complaints, lawsuits, malpractice awards, and patient comments. Beware, some of these are scam sites. Others promise far more than they deliver.
3. Go to a site the has an open forum for commenting about doctors. Here you will most likely find vivid complaints from dissatisfied patients and perhaps some highly slanted comments placed by the doctor and employees. As with all product review sites, one must proceed with caution.
Now the doctors are fighting back. Many of them are asking patients to sign an agreement not to review medical procedures or place their opinion of the doctor or practice online. Once they get a signature, they can get comments placed by this patient removed. If new patients refuse to sign, the doctor may refuse service. Old patients who are uncooperative may see a decline in care and certainly in cordiality.
You must retain your rights to make comments, to complain, and to review your doctor's care. We urge you to always be fair, as well as polite. No one should ever be asked to sign away a Constitutional right just for the convenience of a "professional."
Slightly Creaky is curious about your experiences in such matters. Please share them on our message board.
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