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February 15, 2007 Don't Have a Heart Attack in Stars Hollow Poor Richard Gilmore, a major character in "The Gilmore Girls", which takes place in Stars Hollow, a small fictional town in Connecticut, had a heart attack while lecturing at his alma mater, Yale University. Fast forward to last week's episode, where he's taken to a New Haven hospital. Prognosis is: he's had a heart attack and he's "got a blockage that's bigger than we thought" and he is going to have to get "emergency bypass surgery". He spends the next several hours lolly-gagging around in his hospital bed while everyone prepares for his surgery. He's taken in, operated on and accordingly to the surgeon, he'll be just fine. Except he probably won't be just fine. Why? Because enough time has passed, even in the bizarre world of TV time, that Poor Richard's ticker muscle has died from lack of Oxygen (a different cable network). Bypass may provide new blood flow, but to what? A deceased section of myocardium? What he should have had was an angioplasty, immediately. This would have saved his heart muscle from dying and he would, in fact, have been "fine". All medical studies point to the importance of being revascularized via balloon angioplasty within 90 minutes. The American College of Cardiology has created an initiative to publicize the importance of this concept and to help hospitals reduce what is known as "door-to-balloon time". There is even a web site for D2B ("door-to-balloon"). Oddly enough, one of the moving forces in D2B is Dr. Harlan Krumholz of Yale University. Wait a minute...that's where Poor Richard Gilmore had his heart attack and wound up sitting around waiting for bypass surgery! Attention PR Department of Yale-New Haven Hospital System. Message is not getting through.... Oddly enough again, the set for "The Gilmore Girls" is reportedly right next to the set for "ER". So you say, so what, it's only a TV show! And I reply, well many many years ago, when I was an uninformed youngster, a close relative of mine was sitting on our living room couch, experiencing an odd upset stomach. He seemed pale, was sweating, wanted to leave and drive home. But a guest at dinner had just seen a TV movie in which a man, sitting in a train car, was having very similar symptoms. In the TV movie the man was having a heart attack. Sure enough, so was my relative. If our mutual friend had not seen the TV movie, my relative would not have been taken to the hospital, but would have attempted to drive home -- and would not have made it. So TV movies can be important learning experiences and can communicate, inform, assist. In other words, Hollywood, get it straight! Heart attack victims do not sit around waiting for bypass surgery. They go to a hospital and get a balloon stuck in their hearts ASAP!!! And they get their lives saved. Kind of like the former Health Minister of Canada did on Tuesday. |
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