NEPA Vital Signs - Winter 2019 Spring 2020 - 6

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Letter from the Editor

O

n a sweltering summer night long
ago, before cardiac catheterization
and coronary artery bypass grafting
were routine, my father developed chest
pain. The ambulance was called. Prongs
of an oxygen catheter were slid into his
nostrils and nitroglycerin was placed under
his tongue. The ambulance, with siren
wailing and lights flashing, rushed him
to the hospital.

DONNA M. EGET, D.O.

The doctor at Wilkes-Barre's Mercy
Hospital obtained an EKG and a chest
x-ray, gave my father Lasix through an
intravenous line, and more nitroglycerin.
He "did everything he could" to help.
Unfortunately, back then,
there wasn't much to do
to help a man having a
massive heart attack, and
my father died within an
hour of his arrival in the
emergency department.

The advances in technology that
empower physicians today not only
save the lives of people like my father,
they help create life, improve function,
decrease pain and suffering. We replace
joints that allow the lame to walk. We
implant devices to make the heart beat,
or correct that beat when it strays off
course. The computers that create images
such as CT scans to spot small growths of
cancer also guide the needle that biopsies
those tumors. Lasers remove deforming
birth marks that change children's lives.
Surgery performed with the assistance of
robots shortens operating time, improves
healing, and leads to fewer complications.

The advances in technology
that empower physicians today
not only save the lives of people
like my father, they help create
life, improve function, decrease
pain and suffering.

That was 1981. A decade
later, as I was studying
medicine in Philadelphia,
I learned about amazing
techniques that could have
saved his life. If he'd just
lived a few years more, he
might still be alive today.
Long enough to see me
fulfilling my dream of becoming a
Every specialty of medicine benefits
physician, to rock my children in his from technology. Every life is impacted in
rocking chair, to teach them how to tend some way by this progress. When I think
a garden and make potato pancakes.
of my father, and countless others I know
who died long ago of diseases we can
Today, paramedics would get an EKG now cure, I'm grateful my children were
at our house, transmit it electronically to born at a time when so many miracles of
the ER, and the cardiac cath team would medicine improve their chances of living
be waiting for him when he arrived at the long and healthy lives.
hospital. A balloon or stent would open
the blocked artery, blood thinners would
keep it open, and my dad would have
one heck of a story to tell his buddies Donna M. Eget, D.O.
Editor
on poker night.
NEPA Vital Signs

Be well!

DONNA EGET, D.O., IS A BOARD
CERTIFIED EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN.
SHE IS THE OWNER AND MEDICAL
DIRECTOR OF MEDICUS URGENT
CARE IN DUNMORE.

N E PA

6

VITAL SIGNS
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NEPA Vital Signs - Winter 2019 Spring 2020

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