State:
Nevada
Why I’m a Patient Advocate: Dr. Svetlana Barbarash, M.D. Cardiologist
Having been a practicing cardiologist for the last 14 years, I cannot stop noticing cause and effect relationships in many cardiovascular conditions that my patients come with. As a patient advocate, it is my job to find the reason for heart diseases and to help identify the ways to prevent a recurrence. Some of my patients have suffered a heart attack due to age or a genetic predisposition but a lot have developed heart disease due to “bad habits” like smoking. Some of my heart attack survivors are young women and smoking was the cause of heart disease in almost all of them.
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Advocate Spotlight: Melanie Baldwin
On June 15, 2013, I suffered a Cardiac Arrest while helping my husband hang a picture. I turned blue and collapsed right next to my husband who immediately took action and performed Hands Only CPR while on the phone with 911. He took a few seconds to grab his phone and unlock the front door and then he performed CPR until the paramedics arrived.
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Advocate Story: Andrea Witte
My name is Andrea Witte and I’m 20 years old and a junior at the University of Nevada, Reno studying biology on the pre-medical track. I was born in Anchorage, Alaska to two healthy wonderful parents Mary and John. Since birth, my parents and both my maternal and paternal Grandmother thought something wasn’t quite right. Both grandmothers commented on how I was “very tall and floppy.” At their urging, my parents took me from doctor to doctor, who all said “you have a very tall baby, but she is just fine.” That was until I was 18 months old when my Grandmother read an article on Marfan Syndrome while visiting Stanford Hospital and Clinics and sent the article to my parents. She urged us to ask the doctors to rule out Marfan Syndrome even though all the dominant features of Marfan fit. After a battery of tests in Anchorage in 1998, including an eye exam and an echocardiogram, I was diagnosed with Marfan Syndrome.
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Advocate Spotlight: Cindy Peterman
After 35 years of smoking, bouts with bronchitis and increasing prices, Cindy Peterman decided it was time to quit and she credits the recent price increase for tobacco products in Nevada with helping her.
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Advocate Spotlight: Kathy McCormick
When I woke up at 6:30 AM on October 22, 2013 I knew something was terribly wrong. I tried to get out of bed and found it difficult to walk. I called for my husband, who had just returned from the gym, he found me slumped on the bed and with the slurred voice I said, "I think I'm having a stroke." I convinced him to not call for an ambulance, - I didn't want the fanfare- instead, I asked him to drive me to the hospital. Not a smart move!
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