Heartfelt Thanks to CCU Nurses
From left, Patient Keith Orr, Tower 12 Nurse Educator Kathleen Ryan Avery, RN, Tower 12 Nurse Manager Karen Reilly, RN, Director of Cardiovascular Nursing Mary Lou Moore, RN, Nurse in-Charge Suzanne Lieberman, RN, Mary Lou Powers, RN, and Elliott Antman, MD.
When Keith Orr was admitted to the Coronary Care Unit (CCU) after a massive heart attack in February, he had no idea he’d wind up on the front page of The New York Times. A reporter from the paper was at the hospital interviewing Elliott Antman, MD, director of the CCU, about care for a typical heart attack patient who presents at the Emergency Department.
Antman and the reporter were in the Cath Lab discussing such care as Orr was rushed in. James Kirshenbaum, MD, and Ashvin Pande, MD, immediately performed a cardiac catheterization and found a huge clot in an artery, which they opened with a stent. Afterward, as Orr recovered in the CCU, he agreed to share his story with The New York Times in hopes of educating others about heart disease. The story ran April 8 in the paper.
As a thank you to the CCU nurses for their outstanding care, Antman and Orr in May presented a framed copy of the article, “Lessons of Heart Disease, Learned and Ignored,” to the unit. It is displayed in the family waiting area to educate families. The nurses also received a copy of an educational video on heart disease featuring Orr and Antman that The New York Times produced for its Web site.