CardioExchange Archive

February 19th, 2013

‘So, Doctor, How Bad Is It?’

Reva Balakrishnan, MD, MPH

While on my Electrophysiology rotation, I was asked to interrogate an ICD of a patient who had received a shock from her device the night prior to admission. I performed the interrogation, confirmed that it was an appropriate shock for VT, noting that multiple appropriate shocks had occurred in the preceding months. As I was […]

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May 10th, 2012

Three Guideposts for Talking to Loved Ones After a Patient Dies

Harlan M. Krumholz, MD, SM

Harlan Krumholz shares his techniques for helping to heal the people whom a deceased patient leaves behind.

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September 8th, 2011

When Is the Patient “Too Old” for an ICD?

Tariq Ahmad, MD, MPH and James Fang, MD

Discuss whether to implant an ICD near the end of a patient’s life.

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October 12th, 2010

Heart Failure and Resource Use at the End of the Road

Larry Husten, PHD

Two studies of heart failure populations — one conducted in the U.S. and one in Canada —  shed light on patterns of resource use in the last 6 months of life. Both studies appear in the Archives of Internal Medicine. Kathleen Unroe and colleagues retrospectively analyzed resource use in a cohort of nearly 230,000 U.S. Medicare […]

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August 13th, 2010

Al Fine

Westby G Fisher, MD

CardioExchange welcomes this guest post reprinted with permission from Dr. Westby Fisher, an electrophysiologist practicing at NorthShore University HealthSystem, Evanston, IL and a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at University of Chicago’s Pritzker School of Medicine. This piece originally appeared on his blog, Dr. Wes. “The family wants the pacemaker turned off.” “We don’t typically turn them off.” “They want it off.” “It’s […]

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