Devices

Cardiology was also a really good rotation to learn about devices. There are more devices for the heart than for any other organ system. Although we generally gain an understanding of device indications and what they do in medical school, the nuances escaped me until this rotation. What is the difference between a pacemaker and an implantable defibrillator-cardioverter? When pacemakers are set to "DDD", what does that really mean? How can I tell which device a patient has from an X-ray? Because we admitted patients who needed pacemakers and ICDs, I also got a sense of the common complications of device placement and the arrhythmias and indications that lead to their placement. Furthermore, we got to discuss cardiac assist devices such as LVAD and the Impella pump. Overall, it was a really good review and overview of the amazing biotechnological advances for cardiac care.

First image of Guidant pacemaker and second image of St. Jude's pacemaker are shown under GNU Free Documentation License. Third image of ICD is shown under Creative Commons Attribution Generic License. All images from Wikipedia.