Have You Planned Your Heart Attack: This book may save your life
About this ebook
Taking a picture of the coronary arteries using CT to see the health of the arteries is not new; it just isn't being done routinely. Yet, by using these advances you can be ahead of the game about your own cardiovascular health. Wouldn’t you want to know, rather than guess, if the single biggest killer in the Western world was lurking inside of you?
We all know friends and family members who have suffered a heart attack, who live with angina or endure shortness of breath. A disease has developed. This book explores how we might be able to prevent the disease, especially a heart attack, from occurring in the first place.
Treatment for risk, prior to an event, is primary prevention – the focus of Have You Planned Your Heart Attack?.
Until recent times, primary prevention largely involved treatment of the unknown. Historically, risk assessment has been based on a number of factors observed in a population (or number of people). This observational data includes increasing age, being male, increased blood pressure and smoking. Now, today’s technology also allows us to look at the health of an individual’s coronary arteries in exquisite detail.
The use of CT imaging, before the onset of a problem, is a paradigm shift in the conventional management of heart disease.
Although formalised guidelines or recommendations do not exist for some of the issues covered in the book, a logical and systematic approach based on the science that is available today allows us to looking more broadly at our understanding, and application, of preventative cardiology.
Image information, combined with the information gained from the historically-used traditional risk factors, allow specialists, general practitioners and patients to be ahead of the development of coronary artery disease so that measures to reduce risk can be implemented. Although cardiac CT imaging has been readily available for the past five to 10 years, it has not been broadly taken up.
The hope from this book is to begin a conversation which ultimately increases utilisation of cardiac CT imaging, in combination with other risk factor evaluation, to improve primary prevention for coronary artery disease. Its vision is that imaging will be incorporated into a more holistic approach, thus improving the way we deal with the potential risk many individuals carry in regard to coronary artery disease. As this technology becomes more familiar to the community, then its use could be at the coalface for general practitioners who are, by virtue of their position in providing medical care, the custodians of preventative medicine.
As we are comfortable with mammography, pap smears, measuring cholesterol levels and blood sugar levels, could we see cardiac CT imaging as one of the tools available for widespread implementation in public policy?
For change to occur, we need conversation followed by action. The information offered throughout this book is accompanied by an invitation to be part of that conversation. Criticism and controversy are healthy parts of vigorous conversation, as too, are vision, passion and an enthusiasm for possibility. If this book starts such conversation that opens doors to further evaluation, and discussion – and along the way improves medicine and saves lives – then that is a good start.
About the author
Doctor Warrick Bishop is a 3-Time #1 International Best Selling Author and Cardiologist with special interest in cardiovascular disease prevention incorporating imaging, lipids and lifestyle.
He is author of “Have You Planned Your Heart Attack?” with over 20,000 copies in print; the book is a discussion for patients and doctors about how we can be most precise about cardiovascular risk and save lives!
Graduating from the University of Tasmania, School of Medicine, in 1988. He worked in the Northern Territory and South Australia before completing his advanced training in cardiology in Hobart, Tasmania, becoming a Fellow of the Royal Australian College of Physicians and Member of the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand in 1997.
Working predominately in private practice. In 2009 Warrick undertook training in CT Cardiac Coronary Angiography, being the first cardiologist in Tasmania with this specialist recognition.
This area of imaging drives his interest in preventative cardiology. He holds level B certification with the Australian Joint Committee for CCTA and is a member of the Society of Cardiac Computed Tomography.
Warrick is also a member of the Australian Atherosclerosis Society and regularly contributes to education, guidelines and industry in this area. He has also developed a particular interest in diabetic-related risk of coronary artery disease, specifically related to eating guidelines and lipid profiles.
Warrick is an accredited examiner for the Royal Australian College of Physicians and is regularly involved with teaching medical students and junior doctors. He has worked with Hobart’s Menzies Institute for Medical Research on projects in an affiliate capacity and is recognised by the Medical School of the University of Tasmania with academic status.
For more than a year, Warrick has been a member of the Clinical Issues Committee of the Australian Heart Foundation, providing input into issues of significance for the management of heart patients.
In his free time, Warrick enjoys travel and music with his wife, and he surfs and plays guitar with his children.
