The Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center (TTUHSC) Laura W. Bush Institute for Women’s Health hosted “Matters of the Heart,” a symposium focusing on women’s heart health in Dallas Feb. 5. The sold-out event featured presentations by O. Wayne Isom, M.D., chairman of the department of cardiothoracic surgery at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Weill-Cornell Medical Center; Holly S. Andersen, M.D., director of education and outreach at the Ronald O. Perelman Heart Institute within New York-Presbyterian Hospital; and Marjorie Jenkins, M.D., regional director and chief scientific officer of the Laura W. Bush Institute for Women’s Health. The event opened with a brief explanation by former First Lady Laura W. Bush, introduced by TTUHSC President Tedd L. Mitchell, M.D., of the importance of sex and gender-specific medicine and the history of the institute.
“I’m thrilled so many friends are here to learn about good heart health,” Bush said. “Advocating for the good health of women is something I’ve been passionate about for years.”
More than 350 people were in attendance as well as leading cardiology experts, who all expressed enthusiasm for expanding gender-specific medical research. Lee Ann White, chair of the Laura W. Bush Institute for Women’s Health National Advisory Board, feels strongly connected to the institute’s West Texas roots. She and her husband, Alan, a Lubbock-native and former Texas Tech University System regent, have worked hard to advance the efforts of the institute in Dallas and believe the turnout indicates that their efforts have been well received.
“I feel like I am an adopted West Texan, since my husband grew up there,” White explained. “When I came on board as chairwoman of the institute, I started recruiting other strong women in the Dallas area to help. Support for the institute has really grown in the area since then.”
First to speak on women’s heart health was Isom, a TTUHSC School of Medicine alumnus credited with 38,000 heart surgeries throughout his career, who spoke fondly of West Texas and the work being done at the Laura W. Bush Institute for Women’s Health. Isom speculated on the observed differences between genders in patient outcomes following cardiac events.
“If you look historically, for the past thirty or forty years, women have had a higher mortality rate after a heart attack,” Isom said. “We’ve been trying to improve that. We’re not sure why, but there are a number of things that differ.”
Isom encouraged attendees to pay attention to the signs and symptoms of heart disease, which vary greatly between men and women.
“Men and women have different manifestations of heart disease,” Isom said. “Doctors misdiagnose, because they don’t recognize it.”
Isom believes that misdiagnoses are often made based on presuppositions regarding symptoms that apply primarily to men, and have drastically different implications when experienced by a woman.
“I operated on a lady who had shoulder pain while she was playing tennis,” Isom recalled. “Her husband was an orthopaedist and was injecting her shoulder for bursitis, but she actually had coronary disease and the shoulder pain was a manifestation of it.”
A recurring theme throughout the symposium was that preventing heart disease yields considerably better patient outcomes than treatment. Isom urged all attendees to be proactive about recognizing warning signs, and remain vigilant as cardiac events cause a broad array of symptoms that may vary greatly depending on gender.
“If you see me in your hospital room, you already have a big problem,” Isom warned. “The best thing you can do is keep from getting there in the first place.”
Isom closed by introducing the next featured speaker, Andersen. Andersen also examined the concerning difference in symptoms commonly exhibited in the midst of a cardiac event between men and women.
“Forty percent of women having a heart attack will not have chest pain,” Andersen said.
Chest pain is a symptom that is universally associated with a heart attack. Much of what doctors know about cardiac events is derived from research performed almost exclusively with men. Andersen explained this practice creates obvious errors when the findings are applied to women.
“Women are far less likely to be enrolled in clinical trials, yet more women are dying from heart disease,” Andersen said.
Andersen explained that lack of awareness and education is a big part of the problem when it comes to preventing heart deaths in women. She indicated that unlike other diseases, heart disease in women does not receive the attention that it needs in order to effect change and secure funding for research.
“Twelve times the number of women who die from breast cancer die from heart disease, but we don’t talk about it as much,” Andersen said.
The lectures concluded with an overview of sex and gender medicine by Marjorie Jenkins, M.D., FACP, regional director and chief scientific officer for the Laura W. Bush Institute for Women’s Health. Jenkins described the strides the institute is making in advancing sex and gender medicine to improve the health of both women and men, including gaining international recognition as the leader in groundbreaking gender medicine research. Jenkins also emphasized the critical importance of incorporating gender differences into the education of future health care providers, especially in studying heart disease, which is the number one killer of women.
“The way we teach the next generation should include understanding sex and gender medicine,” Jenkins said.
The two-hour event offered attendees the opportunity to learn more about the Laura W. Bush Institute for Women’s Health and designate financial contributions to ensure the institute could continue its groundbreaking research into gender-specific medicine.
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