EP 1,220B - GETTING BETTER: A Doctor’s Story of Resilience, Recovery and Renewal

Words from Dr. Kadar: I am the Cedars-Sinai doctor who became a Cedars-Sinai patient when I unexpectedly had an episode of chest pain. Despite all I knew about heart disease, my first reaction was all too normal—denial. But I got over that, and ten days later, I was having open-heart surgery for a condition known as the “widow maker.” I wrote Getting Better to help people facing a medical crisis (and their loved ones) navigate the road to recovery. I learned a lot from my time as an open-heart surgery patient, and would like others to benefit from my experience. I graduated from Yale Medical School, completed my residency at Stanford and Harvard Universities (Massachusetts General Hospital), and was working as an anesthesiologist at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where I routinely took care of cardiac patients. I got the shock of my life when I suddenly went from doctor to patient. I had always been in great health and had expected that to continue for a long time. I was familiar with illness denial and the symptoms of coronary artery disease. Despite that, I went into denial when I first experienced symptoms. After my diagnosis, I expected to recover in record time from my surgery. That didn’t turn out so well either, since I experienced several complications. My eventual recovery is an encouraging story.