{"id":3934,"date":"2016-07-13T14:20:03","date_gmt":"2016-07-13T18:20:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/52.229.122.34\/en\/?p=3934"},"modified":"2021-02-17T11:10:50","modified_gmt":"2021-02-17T16:10:50","slug":"fainting-experience-put-emergency-physician-in-his-patients-shoes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/uncategorized\/fainting-experience-put-emergency-physician-in-his-patients-shoes\/","title":{"rendered":"Fainting experience put emergency physician in his patients\u2019 shoes"},"content":{"rendered":"

Emergency physician Dr. Venkatesh Thiruganasambandamoorthy was right beside one of his family members when she fainted a few years ago. This experience, paired with seeing fainting patients in the emergency department, inspired his research into better ways to screen and care for this population.  <\/em><\/p>\n

Dr. Venkatesh Thiruganasambandamoorthy was getting ready for bed when one of his family members called to him from the bathroom. The 37-year-old woman had been under the weather for most of the day and now she was feeling sick to her stomach.<\/p>\n

She said, \u201cI think I am going to go,\u201d and then fainted.<\/p>\n

As an emergency physician at The Ottawa Hospital and assistant professor at the University of Ottawa, Dr. Thiruganasambandamoorthy deals with fainting patients all the time. Usually, it\u2019s the body\u2019s reaction to hot or crowed environments, intense emotion or pain. It\u2019s generally not a serious health problem.<\/p>\n

But when after three or four minutes he couldn\u2019t feel her pulse, he was worried enough to call an ambulance.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really thought she might be dead,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

When the paramedics arrived soon after, Dr. Thiruganasambandamoorthy was relieved to learn that her heartbeat was normal. A few minutes later, she woke up and was fine.<\/p>\n

For the doctor, it was a reminder of how unsettling fainting can be for patients and their loved ones.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf it\u2019s scary for me, imagine what it\u2019s like for people who don\u2019t have the knowledge I do,\u201d he said. \u201cIt really takes a toll, especially on the families.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fainting is fairly common: 35 to 40 percent of people will faint at least once in their lives. Most of the time it\u2019s harmless, but for a small number of patients it can be a symptom of a potentially life-threating condition like arrhythmia, or heart rhythm disturbance.<\/p>\n

Dr. Thiruganasambandamoorthy hopes a new nine-step tool<\/a> developed by his research team will help physicians identify which fainting patients are at risk of these conditions. The tool is currently being verified in emergency departments.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way fainting patients are examined in emergency rooms varies greatly,\u201d said Dr. Thiruganasambandamoorthy. \u201cWe hope that this screening tool will make the process more consistent. Also, if our tool can discharge low-risk patients quickly and safely, then I think we can reduce emergency room wait times and open up those resources to other patients.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Emergency physician Dr. Venkatesh Thiruganasambandamoorthy was right beside one of his family members when she fainted a few years ago. This experience, paired with seeing fainting patients in the emergency department, inspired his research into better ways to screen and care for this population.   Dr. Venkatesh Thiruganasambandamoorthy was getting ready for bed when one […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":3935,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"wps_subtitle":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3934"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3934\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3935"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ottawahospital.on.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}