A Memoir of a Female Heart Surgeon
By KATHY E. MAGLIATO, MD
Dr. Kathy Magliato is one of a handful of female heart surgeons practicing in the world today. As a member of an even more exclusive groupshe is one of the few cardiothoracic surgeons specially trained to perform heart transplantsshe recounts the day when she first realized she wanted to be a heart surgeon: when I wrapped my hand around that heart that was it for me. Love at first sight. Love at first touch. I knew this was exactly what I wanted. To touch the human heart everyday. In her memoir, HEALING HEARTS: A Memoir of a Female Heart Surgeon (Broadway Books; on sale: January 26, 2010; hardcover; $24.00), Kathy gives us a rare glimpse into the realities of being a cardiothoracic surgeon. Readers will be instantly pulled into her fast-paced worldstruggling to fit in as a female in the biggest boys club of them all, learning operating room etiquette (e.g., the lead surgeon always stands on the patients right side), and skillfully juggling a full family life as the wife of a liver transplant surgeon (they have bedside tables cluttered with pagers and cell phones that ring throughout the night) and the mother of two young boys.
Dr. Magliato sheds light on a medical epidemic, cardiovascular disease, which is the number one killer of women in America: 41,000,000 women are currently living with the disease; even more startling, one in every 2.4 women will die from cardiovascular illness. With these staggering statistics in mind, Dr. Magliatos book is full of information to educate woman about heart disease, what the risk factors are, why more women than men die of the disease, and what women can do to minimize their own risk.
We come to know many of those patients whose lives Dr. Magliato has touched: a ninety-four-year-old woman with heart failure whose friends and neighbors call Grandma even though she has no children, a baby born with a hole in her heart, and a thirty-five-year-old movie producer who saves her own life by recognizing the symptoms of a heart attack. Through it all, Dr. Magliato remains professional yet compassionate, treating her patients hearts in both the literal and figurative senses of the word.
Heart Disease by the Numbers:
Based on Statistics from the American Heart Association
41,000,000: the number of women currently living with cardiovascular disease.
8,000,000: the number of women today who have a history of having a heart attack or angina or both.
5,000,000: the number of women hospitalized each year for cardiovascular disease.
500,000: the number of women who die each year from cardiovascular disease.
270,100: estimated number of annual cancer deaths in US women for ALL cancers combined.*
213,000: the number of women who die each year from a heart attack.
160,000: the number of women who die each year from congestive heart failure.
40,480: the number of women who died from breast cancer in 2008.*
50%: the percentage of women over the age of 55 who have high blood pressure.
30%: the percentage increase risk of heart disease with exposure to second hand smoke.
21%: the percentage increase risk of heart disease in women who smoke and take birth control pills.
* American Cancer Society 2007-2008 facts and figures.
HEALING HEARTS is a powerful and moving memoir that demonstrates Dr. Magliatos passion and commitment to her family, her patients, and her profession and reveals that, at the end of a long day, its our hearts that matter most.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR www.KathyMagliato.com
Kathy E. Magliato, MD, is currently the director of womens cardiac services at Saint Johns Health Center in Santa Monica, California, and an attending cardiothoracic surgeon at Torrance Memorial Medical Center in Torrance, California, where she is developing a womens heart center to address the cardiac needs of female patients. She lives in Pacific Palisades with her husband and their two children. (a more detailed bio is available upon request)
