Sudden Cardiac Death

A Registrar once said to me, "This is why I like Cardiology. Everything just makes sense, you know. I'm not very bright."

I can't say I echo that remark completely for now - the stark differences being that I am no where near being a Cardiology Registrar yet, and I am sure that her definition of being 'not very bright' was vastly different from mine.

But I do see every now and again. That my overt preference towards Cardiology was never just an anchoring heuristic to begin with.

The term 'Sudden Cardiac Death' was almost foreign to me prior to my Clinical Medicine years. And now that I am approaching the end of my last EVER placement in Med School, I am being hurled with the terms 'Sudden Cardiac Death' and 'Cardiomyopathies' almost every other day. With all the hype about Fabrice Muamba collapsing in the middle of the pitch a couple of weeks ago and having to be resuscitated in public, I was introduced to the term of 'Non-Sustained VTs'.

Non-Sustained VT's : Ventricular Tachycardia of less than 30 seconds.

We were always taught to recognise the Ventricular arrythmias as the dangerous ones. VTs being no less so. 'Non-Sustained VTs' could progress into 'Prolonged VTs' and then eventually there was the risk of the heart arresting.

There you go. It could be Sudden Cardiac Death all over again.

I've never had an ECG in my life. I am sure that Fabrice Muamba never did regularly either. Who would have thought that a Premier League footballer would arrest for no reason in the middle of a football pitch. So in all essence, I could pretty much be at risk of Sudden Cardiac Death for all I knew. Lol. OK, I kid.

And this afternoon, I came up with a new term altogether: 'Gradual Cardiac Death'.

Clearly, I am becoming more and more insane with the manic mugging for finals than I thought. Because for a moment today, I thought that I would rather be a victim of Sudden Cardiac Death than a gradual one altogether. Although it seems that it is a little late to reverse things now.

Keep Calm and Carry On.

Vamos, Shing!