kym mcnicholas

Cotton gauze, Telfa pads, Raytec sponges, lap pads and surgical towels release lint that can put patients at risk. Significant complications have been associated with lint being introduced into the body. Norm "Fuzzy" Furbush is the Founder/CEO of Syntervention that develops innovative products that reduce lint contamination, procedure time, and overall costs to the hospital. He talks to hosts Kym McNicholas and Dr. John Phillips about how he's come up with these inventions and offers advice to others who want to bring healthcare devices to market.

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Hosts Kym McNicholas and Dr. John Phillips are LIVE in Venice, Italy at one of the most advanced educational events for doctors treating peripheral artery disease, a circulation issue impacting mainly the legs that impacts three-in-five people who suffer a heart attack. It's also the leading cause of amputation in the country. CLI-C Global, founded by Dr. Mariano Palena and Dr. Marco Manzi share best practices at the event for treating the most advanced stages of this disease. Hear some of the most impactful moments from this event during this week's episode. 

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Jenny couldn’t wait for her Mom to meet her firstborn. So she flew her in from the Congo and within days she fell ill and was hospitalized. She was placed on machines and medications to try and save her life but didn’t realize at that time it might be at the expense of her limbs. Jenny’s Mom is a live thanks to the ECMO machine and vasopressors but she now has to learn to live without all four limbs. Jenny and her sisters are hoping their Moms story will help save others from the same fate.

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Society of Vascular Surgery Executive Director Ken Slaw, Ph.D, and his wife Anne Slaw, JD, share their quest to save their son who was diagnosed with a rare, life-threatening, genetic, neurologic disease present at birth. Familial Dysautonomia, abbreviated FD, at the time of diagnosis, had a life expectancy rate of 10 years. That wasn't acceptable to Ken and Anne. Ken reached out to his life-long network of healthcare professionals and attended pediatric conferences in search of researchers while Anne launched FD Now, a 501(c)(3) and started fundraising. They teamed up with Dr. Berish Rubin and Dr. Sylvia Anderson, who through the partnership launched The Laboratory for Familial Dysautonomia Research at Fordham University, New York, which is dedicated to studying the molecular biology of this disease. In addition to the discovery of the gene mutation that causes FD, research at the laboratory has produced numerous life-changing treatment breakthroughs. Listen in to hosts Kym McNicholas and Dr. John Phillips interview Ken and Anne about their story, which they hope will inspire others to not give up hope. 

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Cloning unique white blood cells could be the secret to solving a significant public health problem, pain. Chronic pain impacts tens of millions of people in the U.S. Few options are available to treat it effectively, especially now with a crackdown on opioids due to abuse with an estimated 107, 622  overdose deaths associated with it in the U.S. in 2021, according to The Center for Disease Control’s National Center for Health Statistics. During this week’s show, hosts Dr. John Phillips and Kym McNicholas talk to Vladimir Yarov-Yarovoy, a professor in the Department of Physiology and Membrane Biology at the UC Davis School of Medicine in Northern California about how a new research project could revolutionize pain treatment with fewer side effects and complications

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If you are over age 50, your physician may urge you to have a colonoscopy to check for cancer. You might also be urged to have your lower gastrointestinal tract checked using a colonscope and upper GI tract checked using a camera held on to a flexible tube called an endoscope that slips down your throat. An alternative to a procedure which some facilities offer is to swallowing an imaging device shaped like a pill that follows your intestinal tract down through excretion. The limitation with that versus a manual scope is that the current device you swallow can't be directed and so it may miss problem areas. That's why inventor and entrepreneur Torrey Smith started Endiatx. It's a company that's building a newer version called a Pillbot, a type of robot you can swallow, that can be controlled remotely while you are in clinic with your healthcare team. He talks to hosts Kym McNicholas and Dr. John Phillips about gamifying the gut exam and future use cases for robotics in examining the arteries and other areas of the body. Smith sees microrobotics as a game-changer in diagnostics and interventional medicine, at some point even sprouting surgical instruments to treat real-time. Prior to this project, Smith helped invent a device that would remove plaque from the arteries, which is still in use today.

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Show co-host Kym McNicholas is dedicating this how to her Mom Marilyn Lou Baum McNicholas who transitioned earlier this year due to an undetected abdominal aortic aneurysm that ultimately ruptured. Marilyn’s cardiologist told Kym that there’s still so much doctors don’t know about aneurysms and because of that, there are gaps in care, which lead to premature death. Marilyn was diagnosed with having a 4cm thoracic aneurysm six months prior to her transition. Her cardiologist would only say it’s not at a size to worry about since a surgeon typically does not treat an aneurysm until it’s at least 5cm. Her cardiologist never discussed how to prevent the aneurysm from growing, what symptoms to look for, or her increased risk of having an abdominal aortic aneurysm because of it. So, not further testing was done despite textbook symptoms of symptoms of increasing erratic blood pressure, tachycardia, a pulsating feeling around her belly button, an abdominal mass, and severe radiating pain in her back. Her cardiologist, a vascular surgeon, and an emergency room doctor told her there was nothing life-threatening with her symptoms. They told her to take muscle relaxers and prescribed physical therapy, along with traction. The autopsy revealed what doctors missed.   

Should Marilyn’s 4cm thoracic aneurysm have been taken more seriously? Should she have been tested for an abdominal aortic aneurysm after being diagnosed with a thoracic aneurysm? Should her symptoms have been a red flag for doctors?

In this episode, co-host Dr. John Phillips leads the discussion with guest Cardiac Surgeon Dr. Arnaoutakis, about specifically thoracic and thoraco abdominal aneurysms. For those who aren’t familiar with what an aneurysm is and how it forms, they will go through the basics. But the primary discussion will be around the current gaps in care, new innovative approaches to diagnosis and treatment, as well as critical questions to discuss with your healthcare team.  Also, Retired Veterinarian, triathlete, and author Dr. Kevin Morgan shares his personal story about how he diagnosed his own aortic aneurysm, found the right treatment, and continues to compete in running and cycling events.

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Dignity is an important component of providing care for dying patients and their families. Death with dignity is an end-of-life option, governed by state legislation in the United States, and other lawmakers around the world. It
allows certain people with terminal illness to voluntarily and legally request and receive a prescription medication from their physician to hasten their death in a peaceful, humane, and dignified manner. In today's show we talk
about what you need to know about your freedom of choice when it comes to dignity in dying. It's an important conversation that could impact the discussions you have about life and death with your family and healthcare
team. 

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COVID-19 in its early days was classified as only a respiratory illness with varying degrees of severity. But as healthcare professionals learned more over time, they started also considering it a vascular disease because of blood clots that led to serious complications, including death, in patients suffering from COVID-19. In today's show hosts, Dr. John Phillips and Kym McNicholas are joined by guest co-host Nurse Practitioner Kay Smith and Cardiothoracic Surgeon Dr. David Allie, and a patient who almost lost his legs following vascular complications due to COVID-19, to talk about those vascular complications and strategies to minimize arterial/venous thromboembolism (blood clots), myocardial infarction (damage to the heart muscle caused by lack of blood supply, which could be the result of a blood clot) complications. Some of those strategies discussed include earlier bloodwork to check cardiovascular biomarkers such as D-dimer and troponin as well as ultrasound imaging of the lungs, heart, and legs upon the early presentation of symptoms, which could signal an earlier need for aggressive intervention and treatment.

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