Cardiology

Hello everyone. I wanted to let all of you know about my mentorship. I am interning with a group of cardiologists. It is an amazing place. They have so many interesting patients and I love learning about the heart. We have recently had something occur that the doctors had never seen. A patient came in for an echo cardiogram which is an ultrasound of the heart. During the echo, there was a mass on a "stem" discovered right below the aortic valve which is at the top of the heart. This valve allows for the heart to pump blood in and out. With each pump of the heart, this mass would move up and down depending on the flow of the blood from within the heart. The cause nor the reason the mass was there is known. Another interesting thing which I had personally never heard was a mechanical valve. When a valve begins to leak at a certain rate, there is a need to replace or fix the valve in order to prevent the heart from not working properly and causing it to stop. There are several choice as to what to replace the valve with but the most common ones are animal valves or mechanical valves. In certain patients, a mechanical valve is necessary. A patient came in that had to have a mechanical valve. Since I am younger and my hearing is still at its peaks, I could hear the ticking of the valve a soon as we walked in to the room. It ticks just like a clock because the blood flow causes the flaps of the valve to open and shut thus causing the ticking noise. I was also able to listen to the heart beat through the stethoscope. It was amazing the difference from a "normal" heart to the heart with the mechanical valve. The second beat was drastically different from the two hearts. In the "normal" heart, there was a muffled second beat but in the mechanical valve heart, there was a very loud second beat. I was completely fascinated, of course I am fascinated by everything new that I learn. I have really grown to love the everything about the office I am at as well as the patients that we see. The heart is amazing and there are so many things to learn about it that is the thing that I love the most about cardiology; there is always something new. This internship makes me excited for my future. I can't wait for medical school but most of all, I can't wait to be in a practice seeing patients lovely faces every day.