Congenital Heart Disease Awareness Week:

A Cardiologist’s Perspective

 By Jon P. Donnelly M.D., Maine Medical Center

            This week we will begin like every other – at 6am on Monday morning.  We meet to discuss the surgical and catheterization cases for the upcoming week, and review the cases that were performed the previous week.  Our focus is on how the hearts are arranged and how this perturbation in flow plays out in clinical illness.  We then discuss the various options to correct or palliate the defect, in hopes of improving  blood flow while lessening the strain on the heart in doing so.  Measurements are taken, pressures recorded, flows and resistances calculated.  Every detail is scrutinized to ensure the best possible outcome for the upcoming procedure. 

            I am committed to this week being a little different.  Sure, the attention to clinical detail will remain.  But for me, this week is a reminder that these tiny hearts exist in the context of something much greater than our planned procedure.  They are a small but vital part of a unique and wonderful person, with untold potential, with a story to write.  The story is inseparably woven into the fabric of a loving family, a supportive community, and in every case, a collective human spirit.  This week will serve as a time to celebrate life, and remember with sadness those whose disease was larger than our efforts –  always realizing that our role was but one of many efforts trying to guide a life toward wellness.

            In a way, I am thankful that this remembrance of congenital heart disease only lasts one week.  Focusing too heavily on the above considerations creates too large a burden to be an effective clinician.  There is a useful balance between concentrating on the clinical details of heart disease and understanding it in the context of a life.  This week reminds me never to separate the two.