SVMC cardiology

 

 

STRIVING TO IMPROVE YOUR LIFE ONE BEAT AT A TIME

You get one life and you get one heart. The board-certified cardiologists and associated practitioners at SVMC Cardiology are committed to helping you make the most of both.

Our patient-centered approach to care and personalized care plans maximize your quality of life while delivering the treatment you need when you need it.

Creating the appropriate treatment plan for your condition begins with a cardiac consultation. Your consultation is a chance for you to share your health history and current concerns with your cardiologist. All necessary exams and tests are conducted on-site by your cardiac care team. The results are shared and discussed directly with you so that you fully understand your condition, treatment options, associated risks, and potential lifestyle changes.

After a heart episode or surgery, there’s nothing our cardiac team and you want more than for you to just get back on your feet and live the life you want. That’s why we begin your rehabilitation program before you even leave the hospital. Through a combination of education and exercise, your personalized program will help you build strength and reduce your risk factors. Using the full range of cardio equipment in our Cardiac Rehab Center and under the watchful eye of our rehab team, you’ll improve your heart’s strength and capacity and get closer to resuming a full and active lifestyle. For more information about Cardiac Rehabilitation, click here.

In order to understand how well your heart is or isn’t functioning, an echocardiogram may be performed. This non-invasive procedure uses sound waves to produce images of your heart. Both of SVMC’s cardiologists are board certified in echocardiography and able to observe how your heart is pumping and identify any abnormalities in the heart muscle or valves. An echocardiogram allows our team to make the most informed and appropriate recommendations for the next steps in your care.

If a standard echocardiogram does not provide a clear image of your heart, your SVMC care team may recommend a transesophageal echocardiogram or TEE. Performed at the hospital, this procedure involves inserting a flexible tube containing a transducer down your throat and into your esophagus. From this closer vantage point, the transducer then uses sound waves to create more detailed images of your heart and allows for better diagnosis.

Before we treat your heart, we need understand how it’s performing. At SVMC we offer a number of non-invasive stress tests that can quickly and easily reveal a number of things including: how well your heart works during increasing levels of activity; how certain medications are impacting blood flow; the effectiveness of procedures done to improve heart performance; and more.

If you have risk factors for heart disease, calcium scoring may may help you learn more about whether you are actually at risk. The non-invasive test uses high-speed CT imaging technology to measure the hardening of the heart’s arteries, a leading indicator of heart disease and heart attacks. Visit the calcium scoring page for complete details. 

A pacemaker is one of the most effective ways to ensure a heart maintains a steady, healthy beat. The SVMC cardiac team is exceptionally skilled and experienced at both pacemaker implantation and monitoring. Considered a minor surgery, implantation takes place at the hospital with most patients returning to normal activity (and a more steadily beating heart) within a few days. Like all medical equipment, pacemakers need a little TLC every now and then. At SVMC our cardiac team can perform routine monitoring, both remotely and in the office, and reprogramming as needed.

One of the most common cardiac diagnostic tools, an EKG is a painless way to check for problems with the electrical activity of your heart. The EKG translates and records your heart’s electrical activity over a period of time and translates it into waves. Your SVMC care provider can use printouts of the waves to detect any patterns that might point to a specific condition and put together a treatment plan that meets your specific needs.

Should your SVMC cardiac care provider want to monitor your heart over a longer period of time than is practical for a standard EKG, you may be given a Holter or event monitor. Worn outside the body and completely painless, monitors are helpful in detecting abnormalities that only happen occasionally and can help your doctor link any abnormalities to specific activities or events in your day.

Carotid ultrasound
At SVMC our goal is to treat your health issues before they become problems. Using our sophisticated carotid ultrasound test, your cardiac care provider can detect blockages in your neck arteries that could lead to a stroke or indicate problems in other parts or your circulatory system.

Education
Because understanding what causes heart problems is essential to resolving them, we offer a variety of educational resources to patients and their families.  Workshops are offered on an ongoing basis throughout the Dartmouth-Hitchcock network, and condition-specific literature is available in our offices. 

SVMC Cardiac Rehab

SVMC Pulmonology

American Heart Association 

Go Red for Women 

American College of Cardiology 

140 Hospital Drive, Suite 211, Bennington, VT 05201
Phone: (802) 442-0800
Fax: (833) 343-1597

Hours:
Monday – Friday:  8:30 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Directions: 
For directions to SVMC Cardiology, click here. 

Parking:
For appointments at SVMC Cardiology, park in parking area P3 or P5.

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    Choosing Your Booster
    Anonym
    / Categories: WELLNESS, 2021

    Choosing Your Booster

    Booster shots of COVID-19 vaccine are recommended for a huge number of people. The list includes everyone aged 65 and older, people who are 18 and older and who have medical conditions that put them at greater risk for a serious case of COVID, people who are 18 and older and more likely to be exposed to COVID at work, and everyone who received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. In addition, you need to have received the initial doses of Pfizer or Moderna at least 6 months ago or the Johnson & Johnson vaccine at least 2 months ago.

    Initially, the important regulatory and advisory organizations indicated that everyone should get the same vaccine as they had received in the past. Recently, they have indicated that people can choose which vaccine to get. Being able to choose raises many questions. Here are the important considerations: 

    All of the vaccines are effective. All three available vaccines—Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson—work beautifully to reduce your chances of acquiring infection, spreading infection, having symptoms or severe disease, requiring hospitalization, and dying. Very small differences exist between them. That’s right. They decrease the likelihood that you will get infection and spread it to others. It’s that an amazing attribute of vaccines?

    All of the vaccines have a similar side-effect profile. Like with any vaccine, a small percentage of people experience side effects, which are good signs that your body is building protection. For each of the vaccines, side effects could include tiredness, headache, or chills. While they may affect your ability to do daily activities, they should go away within a few days.

    Dosages vary slightly. The dose of Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson are exactly the same as the original doses for those two vaccines. It’s the same medicine in the same dose. The Moderna booster is given at a half dose, compared with the original doses of Moderna.

    Risks of complications for all of the vaccines is very, very low. So far, among the many millions of people who have received COVID vaccines, three complications, apart from the very rare allergic reaction, have cropped up in exceptionally rare cases.

    • Of the 6.8 million Johnson & Johnson vaccine doses, fewer than 30 people, mostly women ages 18 - 49, had a rare blood clot disorder that may have been related to the vaccine.
    • Men ages 50 – 64 are at slightly increased risk of Guillain-Barre Syndrome after having received the Johnson & Johnson vaccine. While it is a serious condition that often requires hospitalization, it is rarely fatal.
    • Among the millions of Pfizer doses administered a handful men under the age of 30 had a mild and treatable inflammation of the heart muscle or the outer lining of the heart after receiving the vaccine. COVID-19 itself has a much higher likelihood of causing this complication than the vaccine does. While these complications are very rare, they may be a consideration as you decide which vaccine to get.

    On whether to mix vaccine types. We know that receiving the same vaccine is effective and safe.  Studies, including this one, have shown that mixing vaccine types provides a similar or higher immune response in blood serum. While we are waiting for results about how this translates into real life, don’t wait to get a booster. We know enough now to say that all of the booster combinations are safe and effective. While the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) still recommends sticking with the same vaccine as you received initially, they did authorize mixing.

    If you ask a medical expert which booster to choose, they will likely say, “Take your pick. You can’t go wrong.” All of the vaccines provide extraordinary protection against acquiring infection, spreading infection, having symptoms or severe disease, hospitalization, and dying. And they do it with nearly non-existent risk of side effects or complications.

    Marie George, MD, FIDSA, is the infectious disease specialist at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center in Bennington.

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    Tags: COVID-19 booster shot

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