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Happy Anniversary, friends!
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Issue: #239
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November 2009
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Greetings!
This newsletter should be read to the tune of James Taylor's "Shower the People."
Good morning! To those who have inquired about my participation in this past Sunday's NYC Marathon: it continues to go quite well. Thank you for asking.
I do understand that the majority of the field completed the course on Sunday, and to them I offer props and my full respect. Not all of us are that gifted.
Personally, however, having exited the Bronx---and knowing that Central Park is just up ahead---I'm satisfied. From what I have been told, Friday finishes are certainly rare, but you know what? That will make the experience even more memorable.
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This Saturday!
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Weather is great!
This Saturday marks the one-year anniversary of November 7th, 2008. Not sure what that means, but I do know this: it's going to be beautiful (50s and sunny), and the nurses, med students, docs, Penelope, and I want to go for a walk. Why? Well, we've been walking for 4 1/2 years now and this seems like an inappropriate time to stop.
At 8:30 a.m. we will be at Highbanks Park (Big Meadows), digging in for a good 30-45 minutes of moderate exercise. You've been there---it's not that hard. We'll have plenty of hot coffee, H2O (not hot), granola bars, bananas, and moonshine (just kidding, Metro Park rangers!).
Thank you to our OSU medical students Bret and Dan, who guided walkers (through the raindrops?) this past Saturday. We heard rave reviews!
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| Older Bypass Method Is Best, a Study Shows |
 Pulled this from the New York Times.
Published: November 4, 2009
For decades, bypass surgery, in which surgeons improve blood flow to the heart by sewing new blood vessels to get around blocked ones, was done the same way. The heart was stopped while blood was pumped through a heart-lung machine to do the heart's work.
But doctors increasingly worried that the machine, the "pump," might sometimes lead to strokes or memory problems or personality changes. Some privately called patients with those difficulties "pumpheads."
And so, in the last seven years, many surgeons began offering and patients increasingly demanded an alternative: off-pump surgery in which the machine was not used and doctors operated on a still-beating heart.
Now, a large and rigorous study finds the old way is best.
In the study, published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine, 2,203 patients were randomly assigned to have their bypass surgery on pump or off. Because the study was sponsored by the Department of Veterans Affairs, the patients were mostly men.
A year later, those who had had off-pump surgery had poorer outcomes. Fewer bypasses stayed open, and patients were more likely to have needed a repeat operation or to have had a heart attack or to have died. They were no less likely to have had strokes or difficulty thinking.
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Walk with a Doc is a 501(c)(3) whose mission includes breaking down any perceived barriers between patient and physician.
However, we fear that after digesting this newsletter, patients may desire to preserve that barrier as protection from a certain central Ohio physician with an off kilter sense of humor (doesn't it bother you just a little that I'm able to prescribe medications?).
But just remember, it's all in the name of exercise!
See you Saturday,
David
Walk with a Doc
"I firmly believe that any man's or woman's finest hour, the greatest fulfillment of all that they hold dear, is that moment when they have worked their heart out in a good cause and lie exhausted on the field of battle --- victorious." - Vince Lombardi
"When in Rome" - Ron Burgundy
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