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“The story was an 82 year old guy with a broken neck. He had apparently fallen in his bathroom that morning, cracking his 1st and 2nd vertebrae. I had a vague memory from medical school that this wasn't a good thing--the expression "hangman's fracture" kept bobbing up from the well of facts I do not use --but I had a much more distinct impression that this was not a case for cardiology.
"And Ortho isn't taking him because?" I said wearily.
"Because he's got internal organs, dude."
I sighed. "So why me?"
"Because they got an EKG."
The MAO was clearly enjoying himself. I remembered he had recently been accepted to a cardiology fellowship. I braced myself for the punch line.
"And?"
"And there's ectopy on it. Ectopy." He then made a noise intended to suggest a ghost haunting something.”
― Terrence Holt, Internal Medicine: A Doctor's Stories

“Cardiomyopathy Sonnet
(Medicine and Metaphor)

Person's worth comes from
their pulse, not from their purse.
It's okay if your purse is anemic,
so long as your veins got plenty pulse.

It's your pulse that brings the world to life,
Pulsating heart is radiator during this ice-age.
Ice-age never went away, it just got internalized,
As outwardly in appearance we became less savage.

Human heart is in dire need of a green house,
All the warmth is escaping rapidly.
Melting ice caps will drown us later,
We'll have kicked the bucket long before,
from frostbitten cardiomyopathy.

Brain's death is death of the body,
Heart's death is death of the being.
Kindness keeps the being alive
long after the heart stops beating.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Vande Vasudhaivam: 100 Sonnets for Our Planetary Pueblo

“Only the gullible would believe that maximizing value for shareholders comes in second to helping patients in Big Pharma's scheme of things.”
― Barbara H. Roberts, The Truth About Statins: Risks and Alternatives to Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs