How amazing would it be to travel over 1 million miles across 112 different countries in your lifetime?
Even though this may seem impossible, these facts describe how much Hilary Clinton has accomplished not only as a prior First Lady and two-term Senator , but also as our current cabinet member. I haven't followed her lately in her position as the U.S. Secretary of State, but in the past, I had a chance to follow her presidential nomination campaign in 2008. More recently, her husband, former president, Bill Clinton, was a featured speaker at the annual ASHP Midyear Conference less than a month ago.
The recent news of Hilary's health has been well-documented on today's news and media outlets. After a recent concussion, Hilary Clinton was at a routine, follow-up visit where her doctors noticed a clot in her brain. Learning about anticoagulation therapy is kind of a
stepping stone in our curriculum, where we are now more focused on
clinical application, rather than strictly didactic coursework. One of final exams of the P2's December finals focused on myocardial infarctions (aka heart attacks) strokes, pulmonary embolisms and deep vein thrombosis in our Internal Organ Systems 5 coursework.
In particular, our professor for this section was Dr. Trujillo, who also works at our University's Hospital. I didn't realize how big of a deal he was until midway through our course we had some excused days of classes while he traveled to Saudi Arabi for a anticoagulation conference. More information on his background is available at our school's website and here as well.
Deep Vein Thrombosis, or DVT, is defined as blood clots in the pelvic, leg, or major
upper-extremity veins. These clots can break off
from the veins, travel through the heart, and lodge in the lung
arteries,
causing potentially deadly Pulmonary Embolism (PE). Often times, these conditions are symptomless, or known as "silent" and may appear to be another diagnosis. In essence, the discovery by Clinton's New York Presbyterian Hospital Doctors indicates there was something off in how her blood clots, while ultimately puts her at risk for her stroke.
According to CNN reports, "Clinton was treated with blood thinners to help dissolve the clot and
would be released once the medication dose had been established." All this is part of the standard guideline for prophylaxis, or prevention of events where there may be an occlusion, or stop in blood flow. The formal term you may hear is "ischemic events," where is there is occlusion which causes an oxygen imbalance within your body. In this case, limited blood oxygen to important organs, such as the brain, can have detrimental and long-term consequences for a patient.
In all, her doctors and family are expecting a fully recovery. Just as we know Hilary as the resilent and tough-as-nails politician, we can also expect that her health will be restored and she will be back to her Secretary of State duties.
Until next time,
Nicole
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