Centered on Health 10-17-24 - Advances in Cardiac Surgery and Quality Ratings with Dr. Samuel Pollock

Centered on Health 10-17-24 - Advances in Cardiac Surgery and Quality Ratings with Dr. Samuel Pollock

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
It's now time for Centered on Health with Baptists Health
on Use Radio.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Wait forty wys now here's doctor Jeff Tubblin.

Speaker 3 (00:11):
Good evening, everyone, and welcome to tonight's episode of Centered
on Health with Baptist Help Here on News Radio eight
forty whas. I'm your host, doctor Jeff Pubblin, and we're
joined as always by our producer, mister Jim Fandi is
on standby to take your calls to ask questions of
our guest tonight. Our phone number is five oh two,

(00:31):
five seven one, eight four eighty four. If you want
to call in and be a part of tonight's show,
you know. By the year twenty twenty nine, it is
estimated that one point three million cardiac surgeries will be
done annually in the United States. Cardiac and thoracic surgeons
specialize in the treatment and disorders of the chest, lung, esophagus,

(00:52):
and heart. Cardiac surgeons, like our guest tonight, doctor Sam Pollock,
specialize in cardiac surgery. Doctor Pollock received his medical degree
from the University of Kentucky College of Medicine and his
residency at University of Alabama School of Medicine. He has
been in practice for greater than twenty years, and he
has expertise and treatment of heart disease, balvular disease, and

(01:14):
cardiac surgery. He knows the landscape of heart disease backwards
and forwards, and we're very lucky to have him share
his knowledge with us tonight. Welcome to Centered on Health,
doctor Pollock.

Speaker 4 (01:25):
Well, thank you very much, Jeff, I'm glad to be
here with you.

Speaker 3 (01:28):
Well, we're very glad to have you with us. And
you know, when I was in my medical school training
and picking what I wanted to do, we always sort
of laughed at the cardiac surgeons and the neurosurgeons, thinking
that the road ahead of them was so long in
their training. So tell us how you decided this was
the right specialty for you.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
Well, Ja, I grew up in Madisonville, Kentucky, in Western Kentucky,
and my dad was the manager of the Trover Clinic
at that time, so I kind of grew up in
a health environment. A general surgeon moved next door to
me when I was twelve, and so I knew I
wanted to be a surgeon. And then I met another

(02:08):
thoracic surgeon, doctor Jack Hammond, and so as I was
growing up, I knew I wanted to do thoracic surgery.
And then when I got to the University of Kentucky
and I met doctor Ed Todd, who was the chief
of cardiac surgery at UK, I knew that's what I
wanted to do.

Speaker 4 (02:24):
So I got interested early, and I guess I grew
up in it.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
Yeah, it sounds like it. And it's amazing how people,
you know, have these influences on us and what we
choose to do, and we see mentors for ourselves. In
order to really understand what it is that you do,
I think it would be great to get a little
primer from you, so a little bit of an anatomy
about the heart and the valves and kind of the
things that you spend your day evaluating and operating on,

(02:51):
so we can understand the kinds of surgeries that you do.

Speaker 2 (02:55):
Sure, and at Baptist Louisville, and we also work at
baptis Is Health at Floyd. We work on the heart
primarily and the blood vessels that go in and out
of the heart, and the blood goes into the heart
from the body through two big large veins, one at
the top and one at the bottom, and it goes

(03:16):
to the right side of the heart through the right
atrium which is a filling chamber, and the right ventricle,
which is a pumping chamber, and there's a valve between
those two chambers called the tricuspid valve. It has three parts,
and then the blood goes to the lungs where it's
given oxygen comes back to the heart through another area
called the left atrium into the left ventricle, and then

(03:39):
there's a valve that's on that side of the heart
between the left atrium and the left ventricle that's called
the micro valve because it looks like a hat that
a miter hat that bishops wear. And then it's pumped
out to the body through the aortic valve that goes
to the main blood vessel that goes to the.

Speaker 4 (03:58):
Body, the aorta.

Speaker 2 (04:00):
The pulmonary artery is the blood that goes to the
is the artery that goes to the lungs. So there's
two two main arteries and then four chambers in the heart,
the two filling chambers and the two pumping chambers.

Speaker 3 (04:15):
That's a perfect description for us to wrap our head
around kind of these things that we're going to be
talking about tonight. Now. With all due respect, we know
that you surgeons are very important, but part of what
we want to do is keep people out of the
need for surgery. So what are the major risk factors
in our lives that we can do to help keep

(04:37):
our heart healthy.

Speaker 2 (04:39):
Yeah, there's modifiable risk factors, one that you can do
and work on, and there's some risk factors that are inherited.
The genetic factors that we inherit from our parents and
grandparents really affect quite a bit of what we do.
And the blood vessels that are on the heart. The
Cornery arty is that supply blood to the heart muscle

(05:02):
are affected by atherosclerosis. And you can't really change your genetics,
but you can modify things and slow things down by
eating eating right with low fats and low saturated fats,
and exercise and not smoking. We we do know that

(05:25):
if people that are diabetics have more core disease or
the blockage of the arteries atherosclerosis that affects and causes
heart attacks than other folks. But if you can keep
your diabetes under control, that it does increase the chance
that you will not have trouble long term. But the

(05:46):
big things are not smoking, exercise and controlling your diet.

Speaker 4 (05:51):
And the other.

Speaker 2 (05:54):
Big thing is managing your blood pressure. High blood pressure
is a big killer not only for artery disease but
also some of the blood vessels that leave the heart.
So it's important to modify those things that you can.
If you have high cholesterol and you have high fast
in your blood, then you could take medications and reduce

(06:17):
those but a lot of times you can do it
with diet and control that. We have a lot of
problems in Kentucky with smoking and obesity, and we really
would hope that people could get away from that, but
it's a big problem in our states. And I've seen

(06:39):
for the blockages of the arteries on the heart disease
that we see in Kentucky is much worse than the
areas that I've been in before. I've trained at Alabama,
I worked in North Carolina and New Jersey.

Speaker 4 (06:51):
And Kentucky is what we call diffuse disease.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
It's really a lot of vessels that get involved with
the hardening of the arteries.

Speaker 3 (07:00):
That's that's interesting. And yeah, of course, as you pointed out,
I mean tobacco use in our state is such a
major problem now. And one of the things I just
wanted to point out is I think most people are
are familiar with sort of the typical presentation of a
heart attack. You know that test pain, and you know
that subternal crushing test pain. But people can present differently

(07:25):
than those types of symptoms. And what kinds of things
should we be looking out for that might suggest heart
disease that that may not be immediately obvious to.

Speaker 2 (07:34):
Our thinking, Yeah, it's the heart doesn't have nerves like
the rest of your body, Like if you pinch your arm,
you can tell exactly where that pinch is that they are.
The nerves that go to the harder are different, and
it you feel fullness and you can feel pressure, like
people say that it's like an elephant standing on their chest,

(07:57):
but it's not a sharp pain. It's more of a
fullness and heaviness. The problem is is that a lot
of people, especially in women, which we worry about, the
typical angina or heart pain is not there. And you
can have funny pain in your arm, uh, funny pain

(08:17):
in your neck and that goes up in your jaw.
And the other area that we see in is especially
in younger men, is that they're fatigued, they don't feel well.

Speaker 4 (08:30):
They think I've gotten older, I'm out of shape, I
can't do what I used to do.

Speaker 2 (08:34):
And what that is is your your hot heart not
responding to exercise. It's especially important in diabetic diabetics. We
know that people that are diabetics can have neuropathies, but
they also have neuropathity.

Speaker 4 (08:48):
To the heart muscle.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
And a lot of times the symptoms and diabetics or
shortness of breath and fatigue and and waking up in
the middle of the night's shorter breath. One of the
most important things is to think about it. If you
have pain or any symptom of having this things like
this that awakens you at night, that's usually a serious thing.

(09:13):
And those are the kinds of things you ought to
look out for.

Speaker 3 (09:18):
That's really helpful advice. Yeah, these atypical presentations are one
we don't want people to overlook or to miss. So
I think that the table is perfectly set for us
to jump into some of the things that you do
on a daily basis. Thank you for you know, giving
light onto all of these important things that we can
do to keep ourselves healthy. But we are going to

(09:38):
take a quick break, and when we come back, we're
going to talk about some partiac surgery. We're talking tonight
with doctor Sam Pollas, who is one of our cardiac
surgeons at Baptist Hospital, and we are listening to centert
on Health with Doctors Health here on news radio eight
forty w AS. I'm your host, doctor Jeff Plin. Our
phone number five O two five seven one eight four

(09:59):
eighty four. Our producer Jim is on standby. Take your calls.

Speaker 4 (10:03):
Will be like that.

Speaker 3 (10:18):
I want to welco everyone back to Center on Health
with Baptist Help here on news radio eight forty whas
B I'm your host, doctor Jeff Povlin, and we're talking
tonight with doctor Sam Pollock about cardiac surgeries. If you
would like to call and ask the question live, our
phone number is five oh two five seven one eight
four eighty four, and our producer mister Jim Benn is

(10:40):
on standby ready to take your calls. Before the break,
we got a good anatomy lesson about the heart itself,
and we learned some rip factors that are modifiable and
some that are not. To help us stay healthy, but
in the event that one needs a surgery. We're gonna
learn about what that means. So doctor Pollock, tell us

(11:01):
how you make a decision that it's time for somebody
to have a cardiac surgery. Like the things that you.

Speaker 2 (11:07):
Do, right, Jeff, It's important to realize that there are
really three ways to treat, especially when we're talking about
coronary art disease and people that have angina. There's medical treatment,
there's stints, and then there's open heart surgery, and a
lot of it depends on multiple factors age people that

(11:32):
can be very ill and frail, and sometimes we think
that the best treatment is medical treatment. In certain conditions,
depending on the anatomy where the blockages and an artery,
a person might have a stint placed.

Speaker 4 (11:48):
And this is especially.

Speaker 2 (11:49):
Important when we talked a little bit about the last
segment about people that have heart attacks.

Speaker 4 (11:56):
The big thing that I've.

Speaker 2 (11:57):
Seen in the last twenty years is the ability for
our cardiologists to save people that have had an acute
heart attack go to the cath lab and have a
stint placed and reverse the heart attack. It's really amazing
what they do in the cath lab. But then there's
some people who have and especially in Kentucky, that have

(12:18):
such blockages and such diffuse disease.

Speaker 4 (12:21):
It's like.

Speaker 2 (12:23):
I like to call it, it's kind of like one
of those bad road out in the country. It's just
full of potholes and there's multiple blockages, and we end
up doing multiple bypasses where we take a vein from
the leg in the patient and also use an artery
in the chest to bypass beyond the blockages. So I

(12:45):
would say that about over fifty percent of our procedures
done at both hospitals where we operate is bypassed orgy
where we do coronary artery bypass grafting.

Speaker 3 (13:00):
What people typically here referred to as a cabbage.

Speaker 4 (13:02):
Is that right, right? A cabbage? Well, I'm going to
have a bypass. Yeah, it's a bypass.

Speaker 2 (13:09):
It's like you know, in a city that has a
business route and a direct route, the business route goes
around the city and takes the cars around to get
around the city.

Speaker 4 (13:21):
And that's what we do with the blockage.

Speaker 2 (13:23):
And frequently I'm asked, you know, what will doc what
happens to that blockage Once you do a bypass, sometimes
it stays open and sometimes it closes, but it stays
open because you've re routed the bloodstream around that blockage.
The important thing is getting blood to the heart muscle,
and that's the heart is basically a big muscle, so

(13:44):
we want to get as much blood as we can
to that muscle so they can function properly.

Speaker 3 (13:51):
Now, is it common for you to do just one
vessel with this type of surgery or are you typically
doing multiple vessels because of this diffuge disease like you
were talking about earlier.

Speaker 4 (14:05):
Right, It's very unusual to do one vessel.

Speaker 2 (14:10):
Occasionally, we'll have a patient that has a large artery
that has tried medical treatment and it's a vessel that's
not amnimal or can't be having a stint or an angioplastic,
and that's very rare. We tend to bypass multiple vessels
anywhere four five, six. I think I've done eleven is

(14:33):
the most I've done in one patient.

Speaker 4 (14:37):
Everybody's a little bit different.

Speaker 2 (14:39):
Some people have three big arteries, some people have multiple
smaller sized arteries. But the important thing is to completely
get the blood back to the heart, and you can
do that by doing multiple bypasses.

Speaker 3 (14:54):
And I want to ask you a little bit more
about the bypasses and the surgery and recovery in just
a second, but a little bit about and I know
that those are so common, and so are the blood
sinners that people have to be on. Afterwards, Can you
talk a little bit, just for a moment about what
a stent is and why you have to be on
a blood spinner and what happens when people are on

(15:18):
all these different types of blood centers.

Speaker 4 (15:21):
Right, it's if you think about it.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
When it first started out, there was a doctor named
Grunzig in Atlanta started doing balloon antioplasty and quite a
few of those did not stay open. But then the
industry had developed these stints, and what they look like
is those the Chinese handcuffs that you have as a

(15:43):
kid where you put your fingers in and pull those apart.

Speaker 3 (15:46):
The finger track.

Speaker 2 (15:47):
It looks like, yeah, exactly, and it looks like a
wire mesh inside the artery.

Speaker 4 (15:53):
And they have changed over the years.

Speaker 2 (15:57):
When they first came out, they were just bare metal,
and then the industry developed drug eluting stints where there
are different medications inside the stint, and for the most
part they work great. If you have a large artery
that has a tight one type blockage, a stint will
work great. And I've seen them years later working very well,

(16:19):
but in the smaller arteries they don't do as well,
and that's where we end up doing surgery.

Speaker 4 (16:23):
But you're usually on two different types of.

Speaker 2 (16:28):
Medication that works on your platelets, which are the clotting
elements in your blood. You're usually on aspirin and one
of the other types of medications. Effiant is one, Berlina
is another one in Plavix is another one, and you're
on those for a period of time. Some people are
on it for lifetime, both of those medicines together, and

(16:52):
sometimes you can stop the other medication and just take
an aspirin, but that's down the road. As they refine
these stints, I think eventually they'll be able to minimize
the two drugs together because it does increase the risk of.

Speaker 4 (17:11):
Bleeding in it.

Speaker 2 (17:12):
I know, you know, you've seen many people come back
with gastric erosions and things like that from these medications.
Aspirin is worse than the other drugs, But you have
to take those two together for a while if you can.

Speaker 3 (17:28):
And why do you need to be on them if
the stent is in there opening up the artery, what
why do you have to have these blood cinners.

Speaker 2 (17:36):
When they're initially when they're initially put in, they can clot.
It's a foreign body inside the artery, and there's some
remodeling where your body reacts.

Speaker 4 (17:47):
To those.

Speaker 2 (17:49):
Stints that are in there, even though they have medication
in the stent. So for a period of time you
have to take the blood thinners to make sure they
stay open.

Speaker 3 (17:59):
Yeah, you mentioned, you know, we are in de I.
We're very familiar with with people being on the blood
tentner's shoe. Yeah, but they obviously provide such a amazing
especially when we describe, you know, being able to be
treated with a scent versus having to have the surgery. Now,
the TV shows don't do us a lot of justice
when we see somebody have a major cardiac surgery and

(18:20):
five minutes later they're sitting up and talking with their
their family and how wonderful everything is. But what is
the true recovery after a cabbage like you do? What
patients need to expect in terms of recovery after a
surgery like that?

Speaker 2 (18:37):
Yeah, it's the surgery for just a routine cabbage is
usually three to four hours, usually for a few hours
after the surgery. As opposed to like having an appendectomy
or shoulder surgery. They're on the breathing machine for a
period of time because we like to wake people up

(18:58):
slowly rather than reverse the anesthetic and take the breathing
tube out right away, and then as you start to progress,
usually sitting up in a chair the night of surgery
or the morning afterwards, and in our hospitals we utilize
physical therapy. Patients are walking usually the first day if

(19:20):
they can, and then gradually increase their activity.

Speaker 4 (19:25):
There are tubes that we.

Speaker 2 (19:26):
Place around the heart to monitor bleeding after heart surgery,
because there's always some bleeding and we want to make
sure it's not too high, so we have tubes that
come out and for the most part, people are in
the hospital five to seven days after surgery. Now, it
takes a while for the breastbone to heel because we
make an incision down the middle of the breastbone. It's

(19:49):
called astronotomy, and it takes about four to six weeks
for the breastbone to heill completely. So we don't like
people to lift over ten pounds. For about four to
six weeks after surgery, people can walk as much as
they want, and actually we take people up and downstairs

(20:09):
stairs in the hospital, because a lot of people will
have a bedroom up on the second floor and they say, well,
can I go do I have to sleep on the
first lore? Can I go up and down steps? We
make sure they're safe before they do that. I usually
let people drive their car in a couple of weeks.
A lot of people we have want to get on
their tractor or get on there their lawnmower in a

(20:30):
couple of weeks after surgery, and that's usually pretty safe
if they don't have to lift. So it's a gradual
thing as you increase your activities. Most people when they
go home or tired in the afternoon and it's a
good time to take a nap in the afternoon for
a few weeks, and after four to eight weeks you're
usually back to normal activities.

Speaker 3 (20:53):
That's fantastic. We're going to take another break. We're going
to talk a little bit more about the surgery and
the post surgery when we get back. We are talking
with doctor Sam Pollack tonight about cardiac surgery. This is
centered on health with Doctor Help. I'm your host, doctor
Jeff Tublin. Our phone number five oh two five seven
one eight four eight four if you want to call
in this bit time to talk live with doctor Pollock,

(21:15):
give us a call and we will see you on
the other side of the place. Welcome that to sunder down.

(21:35):
Help doctor Hebb here, I need radio A forty w
AJI and I'm your host, doctor Jeff Cublin. We're talking
tonight to doctor Sam Pollack about cardiac surgery. And right
before the break, we've learned a little bit about the
cabbage procedure and one of the things he does most often.
And before we get into a little bit more about that,

(21:56):
we do have a caller on the line, doctor Pollack.
His name is and he had a question for you
about cobbage. Larry, you are on Centered on Health, doctor Pollock. Yes,
my name is Larry.

Speaker 5 (22:12):
I just wanted to let people know you operated on
me in July two thousand and eight at Baptist East
and I had a six bypass and you did good work.
I've had no problems whatsoever. And I just want you
to know that we as as we have our birthday

(22:33):
and when we have the anniversary of my surgery, we
always toast you well.

Speaker 4 (22:39):
Thank you very much. That's wonderful news. I'm glad to
hear of it from you.

Speaker 5 (22:45):
I did not I did not have a heart attack
or anything like that, but it was caught doing the
checkups and everything. But when they told me I had
a six or I didn't know how many I was
gonna had when I went in, but when it was six,
I knew it was very serious.

Speaker 3 (23:04):
So well, well, amazing, doctor Pollock.

Speaker 4 (23:10):
Great, yep, that's great.

Speaker 3 (23:13):
Well, Larry, thank you for calling because actually that is
better than any question that I could ask him in
terms of the surgery. So hearing from you really means
a lot. I know that doctor Pollack, certainly to me,
and I hope yeah everybody listening, So thank you for
calling in and contribute to do well. But doctor Pollock,
he does bring up a good a good point that

(23:34):
I wanted to talk about, which is obviously from his perspective.
The outcome for him was great, and that's what we
always want. But in this day and age, how do
you judge how surgeries are doing? What are sort of
the metrics that you use to tell yourself things surgeries
are doing what they're supposed to do.

Speaker 2 (23:57):
What we do is there's an national database that we
have followed pretty much since its inception it's through the
Society of Thoracic Surgeons and they collect it looks like
about thirty pages of information on each patient and it's

(24:17):
sent to the Duke University computer place and they analyze
all the data and they look at mortality, they look
at post operative complications, they look at strokes, they look
at renal failure, they look at time on the ventilator
after surgery, and it's compiled and evaluated and you're.

Speaker 4 (24:40):
Given a score based on that.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
So it's very important for us to look at these
data points to see how we're doing. And both Louisville
and Floyd are in the top rating for bypass surgery.
And it's funny. I have friends and say, well, you know,
why aren't you a five star in this program? Well,

(25:05):
they look at one star, two star, in three star.
Most of the programs around the country are two stars,
but the top ten percent in the country are three star.
And one of the things that I really wanted to
do once I came to Baptists is that these information
is publicly reported, and you can look at the STS

(25:28):
database public reporting, and you can look at hospitals and
see how they're ranked and how they're doing in areas,
and we report not only for cabbage, but we look
at aortic valve surgery. We look at aortic valve and
cabbage surgery, microvalve surgery, and our TAVER program, which is
the percutaneous valve program that we do with our cardiologists

(25:51):
and the thoracic surgeons. They're all in this publicly reported
database and patients can look at those on the Internet
and see how their program is doing. That's important to
us to try to provide the best care we can
for Kentuckians and Kentucky and and our patients, and to

(26:11):
monitor that.

Speaker 4 (26:13):
It's very important for us.

Speaker 3 (26:15):
Yeah, and I know that, you know, anybody in any
type of facility of medicine like getting these metrics is
always a little bit complicated, and but you know, at
the end of the day, it leads to what we
just heard from from Larry. That's really you know what
it's all about. So you know, obviously I don't It
is no surprise that we have people saying that about

(26:36):
you in particular, but I know our whole bactic scene
is really excellent. And before we get that's, yeah, go ahead.

Speaker 4 (26:45):
That's a good point. It does take a team to
do this.

Speaker 2 (26:51):
Are the people that run the heart lung machine or
cardiac antesthesiologists who put people to sleep, our nurses and
in the intensive care units and open heart recovery, and
our post operative nurses, in our.

Speaker 4 (27:07):
Cardiac rehab, and all our extenders that work for us.

Speaker 2 (27:11):
It's a whole team that really makes this this work well.
And I have to say that we have the best
team around. And I've worked in a number of places,
so I can I can speak.

Speaker 3 (27:24):
To that, yeah, And I feel the same way on
a microcosm level, and the procedures that I do that
you know, we're just surrounded by people that elevate what
we're able to do, and we don't ever we thank
them all and we don't ever take them for granted.
But I do want to kind of piggyback a little
bit on that because one of the things, you know,
I love how you describe the baptist rating and stuff,

(27:47):
and I love when we were able to talk about bautists.
And you know, when it comes to sort of the
vascular side of these surgeries, I know, aneurysms are a
big deal, and for a while, we had to send
a lot of those to other places. But can you
tell us a little bit about where the vascular program

(28:08):
is about this now and the things the progress were
making there.

Speaker 2 (28:13):
Yeah, I'm very proud of what we've done. In twenty thirteen,
doctor Sebastian Pagne came and joined me at Baptists, and
we've added three years ago doctor Mario Kempertando, and these.

Speaker 4 (28:28):
Are guys that have really.

Speaker 2 (28:32):
Started off and improved on our thoracic aneurism program.

Speaker 3 (28:37):
Now.

Speaker 2 (28:37):
An aneurysm is an enlargement of the aorta that leaves
the heart, and it could be anywhere from the first
part of the aorta.

Speaker 4 (28:45):
It can be in the chest, and it could go
down to the abdomen.

Speaker 2 (28:48):
And at this point we have an aneurism clinic that
has anywhere from around twelve hundred to fourteen hundred patients
that we see yearly that are falling for these uh,
these enlargements of the aorta, and the procedures that we
do either open open procedures where we use the heart

(29:10):
lung machine or a procedure called circulatory arrest, which is
kind of like suspended animation where the body is cooled
down completely and completely turned off.

Speaker 4 (29:21):
There's no blood flow at all.

Speaker 2 (29:23):
We do these at Baptists, and it's like you said,
many years ago people would have to go to Cleveland,
have to go to Houston for these operations, but we
do those those day in and day out at Baptists
with good results.

Speaker 4 (29:38):
And you know, I know you've recently with this. It
was a year ago when Judas Priest was.

Speaker 2 (29:45):
Here and one of the guitarists had what's called an
aortic dissection where the aorta has three layers and use
it because of high blood pressure that they tear and
they can rupture and it's an emergency operat John Ritter
had that. He died from it, and so did Lucille Ball.

Speaker 4 (30:04):
So it's in the public.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
The knowledge of these events, and we do those at
Baptists frequently also, and our results are really matched very
well across the nation. And so for people that have
large enlargements of the orda and aneurism, they can stay
in Louisville and have this procedure done very safely. And

(30:30):
I'm very proud of the program that doctor Pagney has
developed at Baptists, and it's really doing very well.

Speaker 3 (30:40):
And you know, even that speaks for itself in terms
of having the capability and the expertise to do that locally.
But you know, one of the other things for people
that are listening is that the impact that that has
on the family who can be hear and near home
and be able to not have that extrovert in of
having to be away also trying to take care of

(31:03):
their loved one is just it's such a wonderful service
we're able to provide locally for our community. So also,
I'm very thrilled about what doctor Pagny has brought and
how it's complementing what we're doing in our oars here.
We do have a couple of callers, but we're going
to take a final break and we're going to get
to them as soon as we come back from commercial.

(31:25):
We're going to have them ask their questions for you.
And I want to let everybody know you're listening to
send it on Health Tonight we're talking with doctor Sam Pollock.
I'm doctor Jeff Publin. You're listening to news Radio eight
forty ways. We'll be right back. Welcome back everyone to

(31:55):
send it on health with that the help here on
Youth Radio eight forty WHA. I'm your host, doctor Jeff Colin.
We're talking tonight with doctor Sam Pollack about cardiac's surgery.
I want to remind everybody to download the iHeartRadio app
to re listen to this or any of our previous segments,
and to get access to all the app has to
offer Doctor Pollack. We do have a couple of callers

(32:18):
on the line, so I'm hoping we'll be able to
get to everybody. But our first caller is Joe, and
we had a question about some imaging test of the heart. So, Joe,
welcome to the show and you are on with doctor Pollock. Hey,
thank you for taking my call.

Speaker 6 (32:33):
I was calling about I'm scheduled.

Speaker 1 (32:35):
For a chess CT for my lungs and there's been
a lot of talk about doing a calcium score on
the BHS, and I'm just curious if they do it
CT of my lungs and the heartbeat chicked as well
at the same time.

Speaker 2 (32:54):
If they're looking at lungs, it's a little bit hard
to do a cassium score. It's a special test, so
sometimes they can if you.

Speaker 4 (33:02):
Ask them to do it, they can what they call
gate it to look at it.

Speaker 2 (33:06):
Uh. It does give you an idea of how much
calcium is in your arteries, and it's a good starting point,
especially if you're having some symptoms. But if you're just
having a regular chess CT scan, they may not be
a calcium score.

Speaker 3 (33:26):
So doctor Paula, can you just explain what is the
use of doing a calcium for like that.

Speaker 2 (33:34):
Well, it's it's kind of a screening test for people.
It's being used quite a bit now. It gives you
an idea of how much calcium you have in the argeries.

Speaker 4 (33:49):
The issue is.

Speaker 2 (33:49):
That that's not the dangerous plaque that this soft fatty
deposit that's in an argery, that's the one that ruptures
and causes a heart attack, and a lot of times
the calcium score doesn't pick those up, especially in younger people.
But it is a good screening test as we all
get older, to look to see if there's calcium and

(34:11):
if it's if it's a high number, then you should
talk to with your cardiologists or get a referral from
your family doctor and to a cardiologist to see what
the next step is. It might be a stress test,
or it could be a cardiac catheterization.

Speaker 3 (34:29):
Great, well, Joe, I hope that that helped you and
Our second caller is David, and he had a question
about trying to avoid having heart surgery. So David, welcome
to the show, and you're on with doctor Paula.

Speaker 6 (34:44):
Doctor Pollack. Thank you so much. This is so interesting
the conversation. Yo, I have wanted to thank you that
very much, Oh pleasure. I've been a pretty good athlete
and very much in shape till I was about fifty,
and after fifty I developed plant appreciatis and arthritis in

(35:08):
one of my knees. So getting on an elliptical is
about all I can do and not you know, hurt
my foot or my knee. So my question is when
I was very athletic in my younger life, I was
very easily you know, to kind of push through and
to get better. And now I'm a little bit overweight

(35:32):
and on the elliptical. My specific question is the only
heart issue that I have that you brought up all
the issues you might be having. I don't have anything
other than I get tired very easy, and on the

(35:54):
elliptical I go for about ten or fifteen minutes. Should
I do that to times a day or should I
try to push through and go more at one session? Yeah?

Speaker 2 (36:08):
The problem is that you don't know what's going on
with your heart during that time and when you're on
the elliptical trying to push through. It's like having a
stress test in the cardiologist office where they.

Speaker 4 (36:19):
Monitor your EKG.

Speaker 2 (36:21):
And if you're having that type of fatigue with that
time of exercise, I would recommend you talk to your
doctor about that because that may be a son that
you may be having some issues. Don't push through it
because if you push people that push through things like
that can end up having a heart attack.

Speaker 4 (36:44):
So I would I would get that looked into if
I were you.

Speaker 3 (36:50):
That's good advice. And thank you David for calling in.
We appreciate your kind words about the show. We're doing
this for you and for everybody else listening in our
in our area, So thank you for listening and thank
you for talking to us. So, doctor Pollock, we have
just a little bit of time left, but you did
mention something earlier. I was hoping you could just briefly

(37:12):
tell us a little bit about before we close, which
is you mentioned something called a taver and then you
kind of went on to talk a little bit about
Kersey Panea. Can you just describe what that procedure is
because I know a lot of people are having that done.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
Yeah, it's what it is really a big deal, especially
for our older patients who are who can be ill
and frail.

Speaker 3 (37:38):
Who have.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
A disease process called aortic stenosis, which is a bony
growth of the main valve that leaves the heart. And
twenty years ago, if you were eighty eighty five, ninety
years old, you were too old to have surgery and
there was no hope.

Speaker 4 (37:57):
You can't really treat that.

Speaker 2 (37:58):
Once you get to a certain point with that aortic sinosis,
you can't treat it. And this was developed where it's
not really a replacement, so it's it's it's really a
TAV where it's transaortic valve insertion where the structural heart
team with a cardiologist and a surgeon to put a

(38:18):
catheter in the artery in the leg most frequently in
the leg, and then insert a valve inside the valve
that's in your heart. And and it's been very life saving.

Speaker 4 (38:32):
For people who have either been.

Speaker 2 (38:35):
Too old or too high risk for open heart surgery.
And you know, I know you may have heard Mick
Jagger had a tavern and Arnold Schwarzenegger had a tavern uh,
and we've done Our team has done patients up in
their nineties and with excellent results, and so it is

(38:56):
life saving for people who couldn't have anything else done well.

Speaker 3 (39:01):
Doctor Pollock, clearly, not only do you know all this
about cardiac surgery, but you are very well in tune
with what's happening.

Speaker 6 (39:07):
In the celebrity world.

Speaker 3 (39:08):
So thank you for sharing all of that with us.
I know this very it's big. It just elevates it all.
So I want to thank you so much. We learned
so much from you tonight, as I had no doubt
that we would. I want to thank everybody for listening.
That's going to do it for tonight's episode of Senate
on Health with Doctors Health, I'm your host, doctor Jeff Hellin.
I want to thank our producer, mister Jensen. I want

(39:29):
to thank our guests, doctor Sam Pollack, and I want
to thank Larry, Joe and David for calling in and
sharing their stories and their questions. You're doctor Tonight. I
hope everybody has a fantastic rest of your week, and
we will see you on the next episode of Senate
on Health.

Speaker 2 (39:46):
This program is for informational purposes only, and should not
be relied upon as medical advice.

Speaker 3 (39:51):
The content of this program is not intended to be
a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment.

Speaker 2 (39:57):
This show is not designed to replace a physician medical
assessment and medical judgment. Always seek the advice of your
physician with any questions or concerns you may have related
to your personal health or regarding specific medical conditions.

Speaker 4 (40:11):
To find a Baptist health provider, please visit Baptistealth dot com.