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. 

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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    The Making of a Superspreader
    Administrator Account
    / Categories: WELLNESS, 2020

    The Making of a Superspreader

    Have you ever heard of Typhoid Mary? She was a private cook, a real person, elevated to mythical status for having infected more than 50 people with typhoid fever in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Three of those infected died, all without Mary herself ever having had symptoms of the disease. She is what epidemiologists call a superspreader.  

    A superspreader is a person or event at the center of an outbreak. For most infectious diseases, 20 percent of the people are responsible for 80 percent of the spread. This is true for SARS, Ebola, and HIV. For COVID-19, the percentage is closer to 10 percent, which means superspreaders have an even greater influence in spreading COVID than they do for many other infectious diseases.

    So what makes a superspreader a superspreader?

    The first ingredient in the superspreader equation is the person’s individual biology, an immune system that can host a high viral load. In these individuals, the virus replicates and sheds virus more readily than in others for one of a couple reasons. If someone’s immune system is very tolerant, they may build up a lot of virus before developing symptoms. Emerging research appears to indicate that even those with average immunity are most likely to spread COVID in the 48 hours before symptoms arise. Alternatively, someone with a weak immune system may allow the virus to replicate and spread more readily. It’s not possible to know in advance if you or a family member is a potential superspreader.

    A person can’t spread the virus to a large number of people unless they put themselves in contact with a group, so where they go is especially important.  Superspreaders go into a group of people. There is no minimum number of people for a superspreader event. It could be a 10-person dinner party or a 100-person wedding. Who the potential superspreader encounters is also important. If the people in the group have lower immunity or are at higher risk of becoming infected, the superspreader is more likely to infect more people.

    Finally, what they do while in the group makes a significant impact. One of the first superspreader events of the COVID-19 pandemic happened at a biotechnology conference in Boston in February. The attendees had no idea COVID was a concern, so they shook hands and shared meals like it was 2019. Ninety-nine people became ill.

    Mitigation efforts, geared to the specific disease, are helpful. For COVID-19, these mitigation steps include wearing a mask, staying 6 feet from others, washing your hands, and socializing primarily outdoors and for short spans of time. It should be noted, however, that some superspreaders are so infectious that they can spread the disease even while following mitigation steps.

    Behaviors that increase the likelihood of spreading COVID in a group include singing, shouting, and breathing heavily, in addition to coughing and sneezing. In Washington state in March a superspreader at choir practice—standing closely with others singing for more than 2 hours—infected more than half of the 61 people in attendance.

    Typhoid Mary was biologically unique. She went into people’s homes and cooked for them, without washing her hands. For typhoid, that was all she needed to do to meet all three criteria for superspreader status. As we approach the holidays, I encourage you not to become a superspreader yourself. We can’t know if you are biologically attuned. The only way to prevent being the center of an outbreak for sure is to avoid indoor gatherings, until we have a safe and proven vaccine that is freely available to all.

    Donna Barron, RN, is the infection preventionist at Southwestern Vermont Medical Center in Bennington.

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