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Essential health information from local experts

Posted: Mar 4, 2025

From Experiment to Essential

The History of Blood Donation

Like the human body itself, a hospital like SMH-Sarasota or SMH-Venice needs a healthy blood flow to function properly. In fact, blood donations play a crucial role in helping physicians treat all sorts of patients. But what is now an everyday aspect of modern healthcare was once the cutting edge—where great discoveries are made and, sometimes, things get a little messy.

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Posted: Feb 18, 2025

The Team Using TAVR to Solve Heart Valve Failure

If the heart is your body’s engine, these cardiac specialists are your own personal F1 pit crew.

The human heart beats about 100,000 times a day. It’s a lot of hard work, and a lot of room for something to go wrong. At the Sarasota Memorial Structural Heart & Valve Clinic, transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) is one of the many techniques used to keep hearts healthy.

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Posted: Feb 11, 2025

Broken Heart Syndrome… Fact or Fiction?

Spoiler Alert: It’s very real.

Dying from a broken heart isn’t something invented by the movies. As mysterious as it is rare, broken heart syndrome is a beguiling condition and a strong argument for the direct connection between mental health and physical health.

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Posted: Feb 4, 2025

Celebrating Heroes in Medicine: Vivien Thomas

The carpenter’s apprentice who changed the face of cardiac surgery

A decade before the Civil Rights Movement began, a young black man named Vivien Thomas made history at Johns Hopkins, helping to save countless lives. To those in the field today, he’s a legend. But it would be decades before his full story was told—and even more before he received the full credit he deserved.

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Posted: Jan 28, 2025

Limitations of the 23andMe BRCA1/2 Test

Why prognosis via postcard can’t replace the real deal.

As the accessibility of genetic testing expands, companies like 23andMe sell tests claiming to identify increased risk of breast, ovarian and other cancers. But it’s crucial to understand the very real limitations of these direct-to-consumer tests and why a certified genetic counselor is the gold standard.

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