Cardiac Biology

So tonight is the first night in my two week stretch in our cardiac unit. It's been about 2.5 hours in and so far just one code. The code could have been a rapid response probably but we transfered her over to the MICU. Apparently there was a seizure and when I got there the sat level was in the 70s.

The census is small over in my unit so I figured I'd get some reading done. I'm going to read some about cardiology since I'm not a big fan and maybe some on seizures if there is any extra time.

The first chapter is on cardiac biology. Endothelial cells do so much more than I remembered learning in medical school. They produce all these factors for vasodilations (NO, prostacyclin, etc) and for vasoconstriction as well an anti-inflammatories, anti-oxidants, anti-thrombotics and antiproliferatives.

I never knew you could do a test to access endothelial function. Basically you can occlude blood flow with a blood pressure cuff and then measure the change in the branchial artery via ultrasound after blood flow is restored. Normal values are abour 10%. A more invasive approach would be to give acetylcholine or methacholine into the arteries to stimulate NO release.

All the rest of the good stuff reviewing the cardiac cycle. Yay.