Module III- Final Draft Essay

Cardiology

For this assignment, I chose Medicine as my main topic and within medicine there are many important fields of study, buy none is more important than cardiology. Cardiology is the medical study of the structure, function, and disorders of the heart. For my career path, I definitely want to pursue this field, because every since I was little, I wanted to learn more and more about the heart and its functions. I was very intrigued by the studies of the heart, which has lead me wanting to pursue the field of cardiology. I chose to talk about three main journals, which highlighted many important facts about the heart and its functions that in my opinion and that most people need to know to about in our world.

The first article I read was titled “Chronic heart failure” from the journal, The Lancet written by Gregg C Fonarow. In this article, efficacy and safety of the statin rosuvastatin in patients with heart failure was investigated. There was an experiment done in which, 326 patients of ages 18 yrs. or older with chronic heart failure were enrolled into New York Heart Association. These individuals were given placebos, which have no pharmacological effect, but given to satisfy a patient, who supposes it to be a medicine. As long as the patient think there taking medicine that is helping them get better, they will continue to use it, even though its all in their head about the medicines effects, in this case it’s the placebos, which have no pharmaceutical association with real medicine. There were two groups, one was given placebos and one was given normal medicine over the course of one year. The findings showed that both groups had similar recovery patterns, even though one of the groups wasn’t given any real medicine at all. When I read this I was alarmed, because I could never think that a placebo could potentially serve as real medicine. So, from reading this article I definitely got a different understanding on how even placebos can serve as real medicine, when it comes to heart associated illnesses.




The second article, I read was titled “Sudden cardiac arrest associated with early repolarization”, from the journal The New England Journal of Medicine written by Nicolas derval. From reading this article, I learned that early repolarization is a common electrocardiographic finding that is generally considered to be benign. What this means is that if you have repolarization the early stages of this disease are very gentle and non- harming, but as time goes by this disease becomes very harmful. This article also explains that in an experiment in which there were 206 case subjects at 22 centers who were resuscitated after cardiac arrest and these individuals were reviewed and there was data taken from the conditions they were in. The control group consisted of 412 subjects without heart disease, who were matched for age, sex, race, and level of physical activity. Results showed that early repolarization was more frequent in case subjects with idiopathic ventricular fibrillation than in control subjects. Idiopathic ventricular fibrillation is a condition in which there is uncoordinated contraction of the cardiac muscle of the ventricles in the heart, making them tremble rather than contract properly.
Among the individuals studied, those with early repolarization were more likely to be male and to have a history of syncope or sudden cardiac arrest during sleep than those without early repolarization. So, after reading this article, I learned about early repolarization and how it can affect the heart.


The third article, I read was titled “Risk Prediction of Coronary Heart Disease”, from the journal, The American Journal of Cardiology, written by Kevin McGeechan MBiostat. In this article, I learned that recent studies showed that retinal vascular signs like quantitative retinal vascular caliber were associated with increased risk of incident coronary heart disease. Also, I learned how retinal vascular caliber added to the prediction of coronary heart disease. The study in this article restricted its individuals to people without diabetes, because current treatment guidelines for the prevention of CHD conclude that people with diabetes have high risk of damage, when conducting the
“Prediction of Coronary Heart Disease” study. So, if we can predict coronary heart diseases very early in their development the chances of curing these diseases can greatly increase, because we will be able to kill these viruses, while their still maturing.

So, in conclusion I talked about three main journals, which highlighted many important facts about the heart and its functions that in my opinion and that most people need to know to about in our world. After reading these articles, my understanding of how the heart functions has greatly increased. I learned terms in this article that I never knew and wouldn’t have learned in years until I went to medical school. From reading these articles, I was even more inspired to learn about all the functions of the human heart.



Work-Cited

American Journal of Psychiatry, 178(19), 1276-55. Retrieved November 3, 2008, from
Research Library database. (Document ID:1654500841).

Chronic heart failure. The Lancet written by Gregg C Fonarow, 177(4), 182-87. Retrieved
November 3, 2008, from research library database. (Document ID: 1374188844).

“Sudden cardiac arrest associated with early repolarization”, from the journal

The New England Journal of Medicine written by Nicolas derval.

“Risk Prediction of Coronary Heart Disease”, from the journal

The American Journal of Cardiology, written by Kevin McGeechan Mbiostat

Research Library database. (Document ID:13254532123).