September Save

As someone who has spent over 20 years within medicine, the notion of saving a life is frequently seen as “heroic”. By the clinicians. By the patients. By appreciative families. Movies and television take it one step further by making it appear “sexy”. Surgical residents enter training full of vigor, wanting to embody this familiar stereotype. It’s natural.

Here’s the deal though, you save a life when you prevent a heart attack. You save a life when a stroke is prevented. You save a life when diabetes is recognized and managed well.

Hearts, brains, kidneys, legs – all saved.

The emotional impact is obvious.

For the financial people who need numbers, the cost works out too. Cardiovascular and metabolic disease cost hundreds of millions of dollars every year in the USA. In Canada, this is tens of billions of dollars. If we look out to the year 2050, this number will be in the trillions of dollars.

But this is not economics in dollars. There is a lifetime value of preventing the chronic disease that follows every survivor of a heart attack, stroke, or severe diabetic. Early loss of a productive life. Burden on the caregivers at home, who are still trying to work, engage in society and they bring this tired self forward. In turn, there is a burnout effect that ripples out to a wider community. Much of this can be prevented.

Saving a life by racing to the OR, doing CPR, rescuing someone from a burning building all matter. These make for very compelling stories and headlines. And yet… 

And yet, we can reframe how we talk about saving lives. In an era where we chase longevity and try to slow down the pace of aging, prevention is a fundamental.

The Secret Cell is your ally here. Help them protect you – as designed. Some of this requires a tiny bit of effort. The individual and the system.

Let’s start with understanding something that nudges us to understand our personalized risk. The American Heart Association is recognized globally – they have a great toolkit for the individual and the clinicians within the system. Start with one major risk factor that needs to be discussed. At the dinner table. At the water cooler. At the gym. Save a life. Get your Lp(a) tested and talk about it.

https://www.heart.org/en/professional/quality-improvement/lpa

Kathryn