Summary: Many stories come up in the news about young, seemingly healthy athletes dying on the playing field. The American Heart Association released guidelines for doctors and coaches to detect these problems early and prevent deaths. Last Sunday, the AHA released a study that they did showing how many coaches and doctors were following these guidelines. The results were shocking. Fewer than 50 percent of doctors and 6 percent of athletic directors knew about the screening guidelines. None of the athletic directors said that their school demanded physicals aimed at assessing an athlete's risk for sudden cardiac death. 28 percent of physicians didn't ask the athletes about chest pain during exercising. 22 percent didn't always ask about mysterious fainting, and 67 percent of doctors didn't ask about family history of heart disease.Critique: 67 percent didn't ask about family history involving heart disease!? That sickens me when so much of your health involves your family history. Doctors know this and yet they don't even ask. I also think that doctors need to stop ruling things out before they test their patients. Many times women with hidden heart problems are overlooked because they're told that it's just their nerves and that they need to relax.
Impact: Hopefully enough people will get angry about this, doctors will be pressured to pay more attention to these athletes' hearts, and deaths will be prevented.
Reference: http://news.health.com/2011/11/13/too-few-doctors-screen-young-athletes-for-hidden-heart-trouble/
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