Message from the Dean
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Christian Larsen |
In past generations, when babies were born with hearts that didn’t form properly—with leaky or narrow valves, holes in the wall between the chambers, or muscle abnormalities—parents were not offered much hope.
Even if the child survived, it was expected that they would have an abbreviated, curtailed life.
Today, for the first time, there are more adults than children living with congenital heart defects (CHDs). They are going to college, having children themselves, and becoming scientists and researchers and musicians and teachers.
That’s why medical homes like Emory’s Adult Congenital Heart Center—the only one in the state and one of the largest in the country—are important. They provide a continuity of care vital for patients with lifelong conditions like CHD.
Emory’s center follows more than 3,000 CHD patients, with about 2,000 patient visits and 100 heart surgeries yearly. Multidisciplinary teams include adult and pediatric cardiologists, congenital cardiac surgeons, electrophysiologists, interventional cardiologists, nurse practitioners, nurses, social workers, and echocardiographers. The center also provides genetic counseling and partners with our ob/gyn staff to provide high-risk pregnancy counseling and management.
"As these children grow into adults, they need ongoing specialty cardiac care," says center director and cardiologist Wendy Book. "Yet this high-risk group often experiences lapses in care because of the perception that they are ‘fixed’ or because they aren’t experiencing symptoms. CHDs are so closely associated with infancy and childhood that people often think the conditions just don’t affect adults."
We are also helping to provide continuous care and support for adults with another disease once thought to be a death sentence—HIV. Now, people who are HIV-positive are routinely living long enough to become senior citizens, grandparents, and retirees.
At the Ponce de Leon Center, part of the Grady Health System, Emory doctors and researchers, under the direction of Wendy Armstrong, serve more than 5,200 people in the greater Atlanta area with HIV/AIDS. Many of the center’s patients volunteer to participate in research because they want to give back, Armstrong says. Patients have told her: "I was planning my death. I never expected to be able to plan my life." A growing number of these patients are older than 50. The Atlanta VA Medical Center is also experiencing this "graying of an epidemic"—of its 1,600 HIV-positive patients, the median age is 52.
The medical and research communities have done a great job of keeping patients with these conditions alive. Now we need to keep them active and healthy so they can make the most of their additional hard-won years.
