Cardiologist Sings the Heart Attack Blues

Dr. Terrence Baruch has a funny and informative video out on YouTube which will significantly increase surviving a heart attack…if you watch and pay attention – Photos by Terry Miller

By Joe Taglieri

As heart attacks claim more lives each year nationwide than any other cause of death, an Arcadia-based doctor has launched a crusade to increase awareness that he hopes will lead to reduced lag time between the onset of symptoms and applying a key life-saving medical procedure.

Dr. Terrence Baruch is the director of Methodist Hospital’s Cardiac Catheterization Lab, which provides what he describes as the most effective treatment to date for countering the deadly effects of heart attacks resulting from clogged arteries. Since last year Baruch has been on a mission that aims to more quickly get heart attack patients into facilities offering angioplasty care.

“When people show up at a hospital that doesn’t have that kind of capability, it was a real challenge in getting those people to the right place,” Baruch explained.

“The sooner you can unclog the artery, the more muscle tissue you can save,” he continued. “The longer the artery is closed, the more damage is done. If it’s closed up to eight, 10, 12 hours, it’s all damaged, there’s nothing you can do. But every minute you can get earlier than that limits the amount of damage. Less than 90 minutes has been the standard, and we’ve all been able to do that.”

According to Baruch, damaged heart tissue is poignantly measurable in terms of equating with the number of years shaved off of a patient’s lifespan. By raising awareness among potential heart attack sufferers, he hopes 90-minute response times will elevate to 75 percent from the current level that totals around 40 percent of the county’s heart attack cases.

“My goal is to get people as soon as they start having their symptoms to call 911 and get them into a place like mine where we can actually do something for them,” said Baruch. “I must want to save 100,000 lives, which I think I can do if everybody does this throughout the country.”

With greater public awareness of heart attack symptoms and the crucial need for assistance from paramedics, the 30-year veteran cardiologist aspires to a “30-minute or less” standard.

“If you can get them in and out to the other hospital in less than 30 minutes, you save people’s lives,” he said.

In 2008 in conjunction with the American Heart Association and the Los Angeles County Emergency Medical Services Department, Baruch spearheaded a campaign to reform emergency procedures that significantly sped up the process for getting heart attack patients to angioplasty-capable facilities.

Noteworthy accomplishments during this period were equipping paramedics with electrocardiogram machines, commonly known as “EKG,” which are essential to swiftly diagnosing a heart attack, and instructing ER staff at hospitals without angioplasty capability to call paramedics for quicker transport to the proper medical facility.

“That worked great. It’s like picking them up at home, but we would pick them up at the other hospital and transfer from one emergency room to another hospital,” Baruch recalled. “That’s made it to where we were able to open the artery in less than 90 minutes, which is our goal, 40 percent of the time.”

Prior to 2008 emergency health care providers in the county were able to respond in 90 minutes or less in just 10 percent of heart attack incidents, according to Baruch.

Still, greater public awareness of heart attack symptoms remains the most crucial part of cutting response time, he said.

“Denial is a big factor in this,” he added, noting that another key goal of the current campaign is to help make people connect symptoms with the need to dispel resistance to calling 911.

Baruch’s bottom line: “If you want to live, call 911.”

To get the word out to patients about the importance of timely angioplasties, Baruch designed a series of posters targeting emergency room waiting areas as well as a post-able set of guidelines for ER staff members aimed at quickly getting heart attack sufferers out of hospitals that don’t offer angioplasty treatment and into appropriate nearby facilities.

Baruch also established a website and produced a series of musical and dramatic YouTube videos titled “Heart Attack Blues” that echo the messages in his poster designs.

The posters, which come in a variety of sizes ranging from more than six feet in height to 11-by-17-inch wall models, detail symptoms and very directly instruct potential heart attack sufferers to immediately seek emergency care.

Typical symptoms include “the sudden onset of severe crushing, tearing or squeezing chest pain or pressure that can radiate to the arm, neck or back,” shortness of breath, sweating, dizziness or nausea.

Baruch’s posters also identify more subtle, atypical symptoms — intermittent chest pain; “mild to severe pain or a sense of pressure in other parts of your body” such as the stomach, arm, throat or jaw; nausea and vomiting; sudden fatigue or weakness; dizziness or lightheadedness; shortness of breath; and suddenly breaking out into a cold sweat.

Baruch said this year he will focus on getting his posters approved and installed at the 43 hospitals in the county that don’t do angioplasty. Thirty-three medical facilities in the L.A. area currently offer the procedure.

He also has plans to expand his symptom-awareness program into the realm of strokes.

“A stroke is essentially a blood clot in the brain,” Baruch said. “The brain is worse because you can survive with a week heart and be fairly functional, but with a weak brain you don’t go very far.”

For more information on Baruch and heart attacks, visit his website at heart-attack-blues.com.

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