Cassidy Mullen
Ippolito C Even
Current Event 19
March 18, 2019
Kolata, Gina. “Tens of Thousands of Heart Patients May Not Need Open-Heart Surgery.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 16 Mar. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/03/16/health/aortic-valve-replacement-heart.html.
Open heart surgery is considered one of the most frightening surgical procedures as a patient,
but a new minimally invasive procedure called TAVR has proven effective in two large clinical
trials focusing on young healthier patients. The TAVR procedure was previously only used on
older patients who would not likely survive open heart surgery, but now it has proven to lower
risk of disabling strokes and death in younger patients. In this procedure, a replacement aortic
valve is inserted through the patient's groin and threaded to the heart where it is placed into
the site of the old valve.
but a new minimally invasive procedure called TAVR has proven effective in two large clinical
trials focusing on young healthier patients. The TAVR procedure was previously only used on
older patients who would not likely survive open heart surgery, but now it has proven to lower
risk of disabling strokes and death in younger patients. In this procedure, a replacement aortic
valve is inserted through the patient's groin and threaded to the heart where it is placed into
the site of the old valve.
This new surgical method may change the standard patient care. The TAVR procedure only takes
days to recover from instead of months and does not involve cracking the chest and stopping the heart.
The Article states, “As many as 20,000 patients a year would be eligible for TAVR, in addition to
the nearly 60,000 intermediate- and high-risk patients who get the operation now.” This gives
me hope for future less invasive medical procedures that could save thousands of lives.
days to recover from instead of months and does not involve cracking the chest and stopping the heart.
The Article states, “As many as 20,000 patients a year would be eligible for TAVR, in addition to
the nearly 60,000 intermediate- and high-risk patients who get the operation now.” This gives
me hope for future less invasive medical procedures that could save thousands of lives.
I like that the article identifies the reason why younger patients have not typically received
the procedure in the past which is because it is more common for younger patients to have
two flaps to the aortic valve instead of three. I am still curious why younger patients without
this condition have not received the TAVR procedure earlier and if some patients with two
flaps can receive this new procedure. I really like that Kolata acknowledged the economic
side of the Tavr valves and the idea that they are more expensive but if more companies
produce these valves competition will go up and prices should go down.
the procedure in the past which is because it is more common for younger patients to have
two flaps to the aortic valve instead of three. I am still curious why younger patients without
this condition have not received the TAVR procedure earlier and if some patients with two
flaps can receive this new procedure. I really like that Kolata acknowledged the economic
side of the Tavr valves and the idea that they are more expensive but if more companies
produce these valves competition will go up and prices should go down.
This week I read Cassidy’s review of “Tens of Thousands of Heart Patients May Not Need Open-Heart Surgery” by Gina Kolata. In the article, Kolata discusses an alternative to open heart surgery, called TAVR, which is not nearly as invasive and requires significantly less on the part of the patient. One thing I liked about Cassidy’s review is that she did an accurate job of summarizing the article. Nearly all of the major points present in the article were in Cassidy’s review. Another thing I liked is her use of numbers and quotations to further explain what the article is discussing. For instance, Cassidy quotes, “As many as 20,000 patients a year would be eligible for TAVR, in addition to the nearly 60,000 intermediate- and high-risk patients who get the operation now.” Finally, a third thing I liked about the review was Cassidy’s writing. Her review had a good flow to it and all the sentences were grammatically correct, making for an easy read.
ReplyDeleteEven though she did a lot well, there are a few things missing in the review. For instance, while Cassidy talks about the alternative surgery, TAVR, and all of its benefits, not once does she actually say what TAVR stands for. Secondly, I feel that Cassidy could have improved upon her reflection at the end. In my opinion, she glossed over the important issues and simply stated how important the procedure is.
The reason I chose this review is that it is something that relates to all of us. Unlike an abstract biological concept, in which many of the other current events are about, this one talked about something that is very relevant. There is a good chance that some of us will end up needing heart surgery at some point in our lives, so if an easier alternative to open heart surgery becomes readily available, this could have huge ramifications for the overall cardiovascular wellbeing of the public.
Clara DeMagalhaes Current Event #20
ReplyDeleteKolata, Gina. “Tens of Thousands of Heart Patients May Not Need Open-Heart Surgery.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 16 Mar. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/03/16/health/aortic-valve-replacement-heart.html.
Cassidy’s review of the article “Tens of Thousands of Heart Patients May Not Need Open-Heart Surgery” was extremely well written and exceeded general expectations. For starters, I think that the first sentence was an effective hook and would draw the reader in easily without overdoing it. I also like that quotes directly sourced from the article were incorporated into the review, as it makes the review seem much more credible and also gives the reader an idea of what the author’s writing was like. Lastly, the critique was well done and Cassidy went in depth about why the article was written well while also adding her own personal thoughts.
However, there are a couple of things that could be improved on. I think that the summary of the article could use a little bit more substance, such as explaining how the procedure TAVR was discovered to be useful and the direct effects that it had on the patients. Additionally, I think it would have been beneficial to hear Cassidy’s constructive criticism on the article as well. It’s good to elaborate deeply on the upsides of the original source, but adding critiques can help balance it out more and make it feel more rounded.
As said in the review, heart surgery is an extremely daunting process with no real guarantee for success or even survival. Heart problems are also extremely common and are very life threatening, so hearing that there is now a potentially safer and more reliable treatment may change things significantly for the better. This revelation could open up further pathways into finding better and better treatments, and makes me want to keep up more with medicinal updates in the scientific community.
I decided to read Cassidy Mullen’s review on the article “Tens of Thousands of Heart Patients May Not Need Open-Heart Surgery” by Gina Kolata. The article discusses the newest “minimally invasive” cardiac procedure dubbed TAVR, a procedure in which “a replacement aortic valve is inserted through the patient's groin and threaded to the heart where it is placed into the site of the old valve.” This procedure could potentially replace open-heart surgery if it proves to be successful. Cassidy’s summary of the article was very well-written- she was both clear and concise in her description of the TAVR procedure, and she stated everything without much ornament, making it easy for anyone to understand. Additionally, she does an excellent job with describing the importance of the emerging TAVR procedure; not only does she describe the pros of the TAVR procedure with adequate detail, but she also incorporates quotes and statistics from the original article, something that helped illustrate the tremendous nature of this emerging procedure. Cassidy comments, “The Article states, ‘As many as 20,000 patients a year would be eligible for TAVR, in addition to the nearly 60,000 intermediate- and high-risk patients who get the operation now.’ This gives me hope for future less invasive medical procedures that could save thousands of lives.” Lastly, Cassidy’s description of the article’s strengths was poignant and nuanced; through her incorporation of evidence from the text, she fortifies her point and is able to successfully persuade the reader to understand the ways in which the author demonstrates her expertise on the issue. For instance, she opines, “I like that the article identifies the reason why younger patients have not typically received the procedure in the past which is because it is more common for younger patients to have two flaps to the aortic valve instead of three.”
ReplyDeleteWhile Cassidy’s review was well-written overall, there are a few ways in which she could improve on her writing and ideas. For example, Cassidy did not incorporate many quotes from the original article in her review, something that left a few open-ended questions without any particular answers. She could have used quotes to support her ideas concerning the development of TAVR and its benefits in order to quote from a more reliable, authoritative source, something that would have lent more credence to her opinions and her reporting of the event. Additionally, there are also certain details omitted from Cassidy’s review that would have filled in the gaps in knowledge for those who are not well-versed in surgical procedures and medicine in general. Personally, I found myself puzzled as to why open heart surgery is far more dangerous than this new TAVR procedure and would have appreciated some explanation as to how this is so. Cassidy could have also added more of a critique to her final paragraph due to the fact that she does not discuss any of the downsides to the procedure; in the event that none were mentioned, then she could have added the fact that there is bias in the article in her review.
Upon reading Cassidy’s review and the corresponding article, I was struck by the significance and impact that the TAVR procedure will have on both the world of medicine and the world in general. Using the TAVR procedure, surgeons can now save many more lives with a minimally-invasive method that has the potential to cause fewer negative side effects. I chose to read this article and review because I am considering a career in medicine, so these types of discoveries and developments greatly interest me. This has opened my eyes to the new medical advancements that we are making every day, and demonstrates the myriad developments in medicine and biotechnology that will improve and perhaps even save the lives of millions across the globe.
Anabel Maldonado
ReplyDeleteIppolito C Even
Current Event #20 Comment
March 24th, 2019
Kolata, Gina. “Tens of Thousands of Heart Patients May Not Need Open-Heart Surgery.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 16 Mar. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/03/16/health/aortic-valve-replacement-heart.html.
I really enjoyed reading Cassidy’s review! I thought Cassidy’s summary on this current event was amazing! I think she explained it perfectly - it was simple yet detailed. She succeeded by explaining how this procedure happens when stating “In this procedure, a replacement aortic valve is inserted through the patient's groin and threaded to the heart where it is placed into the site of the old valve.” In addition, she was successful when stating the impact this procedure has on our society. She clearly emphasized the importance that this procedure has when writing about the repercussions that follow surgery. For instance, she stated that it takes months for recovery from surgeries, while this procedure takes several days. Lastly, I think she was successful when drawing the readers in. Her first sentenced grasped the viewers attention: “Open heart surgery is considered one of the most frightening surgical procedures as a patient, but a new minimally invasive procedure called TAVR has proven effective in two large clinical trials focusing on young healthier patients.” Throughout the review I was always interested. I think she was able to grasp our attention by using a passionate voice that highlighted the importance and groundbreaking invention.
Although Cassidy was successful, there is room for improvement. I think she could have included some more information in this review. Although it was interesting and simple, I would have loved to learn more about it. Who fully discovered this? Why does it enter from the groin? What is this made of? I also wish she gave some background information in her critique. Also, I wish she explained what TAVR stood for - although this is a very small and particular issue that I think she faced, I think it is very important for the audience to know. She could have fixed both of these issues by doing outside research and including more information.
I actually chose to read about this review because I have heard about TAVR many times. I have heard my father (who is a vascular surgeon) talk about this somewhat new procedure. In fact, my aunt is a cardiologist who has performed this procedure several times. This review was very intriguing to read about because these new medical discoveries are helping our world and medicine tremendously. This new discovery leaves me with certain questions about where our future will be medically… Will there be many new ways to help someone, without “opening them up”?
Sunday Ladas
ReplyDeleteMr. Ippolito
AP Biology C-EVEN
25 March 2019
Kolata, Gina. “Tens of Thousands of Heart Patients May Not Need
Open-Heart Surgery.” The New York Times, The New York Times,
16 Mar. 2019,
www.nytimes.com/2019/03/16/health/aortic-valve-replacement-h
eart.html.
I thought that Cassidy did a very good job writing about this current event. To begin, I thought the beginning paragraph had a really energetic and exciting to it. I thought that she did a really good job in writing with energy. I thought that she also did an exceptional analyzing the writers writing style. I thought that she brought up many points about how the author made it the article easy to read for her. She then followed her statement by providing examples as to how the author made it reader friendly. I thought that was a very interesting observation and point. Lastly, I thought that it was really interesting how she incorporated rhetorical questions into the passage. I felt like the rhetorical questions made the passage a little more captivating.
Cassidy does a really good job throughout the article listing the facts and everything however, I felt that she could have had a more captivating introduction. I thought this because her introduction to the reader was very factual and very dull. Even though stating facts are a good way to explain the main point of the article, I feel like it is not the most effective way to introduce a topic. I also felt that she could have emphasized her opinion in the article more, she briefly touched on her opinion in the article. I felt it would have been more interesting to read her point of view as well as the facts about the topic she was writing about.
I thought that in general that this topic that Cassidy wrote about was very interesting. I thought that it was interesting information to know just in case in the future and I read an article about this topic I can remember reading about it before. I thought that this topic enlightened me about the recent problems involving open heart surgery and how it was considered one of the most frightening surgical procedures for a patient until the recent discovery to do a TAVR procedure. I thought that learning about the new TAVR procedure is a major discussion topic in the world currently and hopefully there will soon more evidence to give patients more certainty that it is the best option.
Kolata, Gina. “Tens of Thousands of Heart Patients May Not Need Open-Heart Surgery.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 16 Mar. 2019, www.nytimes.com/2019/03/16/health/aortic-valve-replacement-heart.html.
ReplyDeleteIn Cassidy's review of the article “'Tens of Thousands of Heart Patients May Not Need Open-Heart Surgery”, she did an excellent job of summarizing it's main points. After reading his article I feel quite well informed on the topic yet not bored by too much detail. Additionally, I feel liked her use of quotations from the original passage. She succesfully incorporated meaningful quotes in a way that made them meaningful and allowed them to positively contribute to her review. Finally, this review was very well written overal. It is well strucured and had few to no technical or gramatical mistakes.
I felt that Cassidy could have improved her work by giving more detail about actual mechanism of the new surgery. A more thorough understanding of how the biology works might help people better understand it's potential to revolutionize medicine as well as more thoroughly informing them of the subject. Secondly, in her explanation of the subject's significance, Cassidy could have provided more detail on the previous successes of this new surgery. Perhaps a statistic on how succesful the surgery has been hencefar would help readers be more convinced of its potenital benefits.
Medical professionals have spend decades working towards perfecting the most minimally-invasive treatments possible. The degree to which a surgery invades on a patients body is correlated to how difficult the recovery will be, as well as how likely they are to get infections. Still, the need for heart surgeries is very common. Thus, if there is any alterior to the painful, risky, invasive surgeries that have been used in the past, they must be researched and put into practice as quickly as possible, as they can both improve and save countless lives.