Study finds infertility history linked with increased risk of heart failure
Women who had experienced infertility had a 16% increased risk of heart failure compared with women who did not have an infertility history.
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Senior Surgeon, Department of Surgery
Associate Director, Codman Center for Clinical Excellence in Surgery
David Michael Shahian, MD, is a summa cum laude graduate of Harvard College and received his medical degree from Harvard Medical School. He trained in general surgery at Massachusetts General Hospital and completed his fellowship in cardiovascular and thoracic surgery at Rush-Presbyterian–St. Luke’s Medical Center. For nearly a quarter century, Dr. Shahian was an attending cardiothoracic surgeon at Lahey Health (formerly Lahey Clinic), most of that time serving as chair of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery. He also served terms as president of the medical staff and member of the board of governors. Dr. Shahian is currently professor of surgery at Harvard Medical School and vice president of the Mass General Lawrence Center for Quality and Safety.
Dr. Shahian has previously served as the inaugural chair of the Massachusetts Cardiac Care Quality Commission, which led development of the Massachusetts cardiac surgery public reporting system, and he also served as president of the Massachusetts Society of Thoracic Surgeons. Nationally, Dr. Shahian is chair of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons (STS) Quality Measurement Task Force and its Workforce on Quality, in which capacities he has led development of dozens of National Quality Forum-endorsed performance measures and the risk models upon which they are based. He is past-chair of the STS National Database Workforce and the STS Council on Quality, Research and Patient Safety, overseeing all database, quality measurement and public reporting activities. Dr. Shahian co-led development of the STS national voluntary public reporting program. In recognition of this and related quality activities, he accepted the 2018 Eisenberg Award of the Joint Commission and National Quality Forum on behalf of STS. In 2017, Dr. Shahian received the STS Distinguished Service Award.
Dr. Shahian has served on the Board of Directors and Executive Committee of the National Quality Forum and the Board of the PCPI, and he is the founding chair of the National Quality Registry Network. Dr. Shahian has published more than 300 peer-reviewed scientific articles and he is deputy editor of the Annals of Thoracic Surgery.
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Women who had experienced infertility had a 16% increased risk of heart failure compared with women who did not have an infertility history.
Advanced consumer technology has produced small electrocardiogram devices that could be efficiently deployed in point-of-care screening for atrial fibrillation, though the proportion of cases detected among all patients 65 and older is small.
Mutations in genes that direct the production of fibrillar collagens, essential components of blood vessel walls, appear to predispose individuals to SCAD.
Heart disease is the leading cause of death in men and women alike. In this presentation, Dr. Emily Lau reviews the epidemiology of heart disease in women, differences in heart disease between women and men, and special considerations for promoting female heart health.
“Thank you for your service” is a phrase shared with U.S. service members. But Mass General’s Shannon Stuart, RN, a commissioned officer with the Air National Guard, says she is the one who feels the need to share her appreciation.
On January 1, 2020, Carol and her husband traveled to Florida for the start of their four-month winter vacation. Carol felt fatigued as soon as she arrived, but did not initially give much thought to it. After a few days, Carol’s exhaustion had grown, and she’d developed a new pain in her abdomen.