{"id":1044,"date":"2021-04-09T15:36:44","date_gmt":"2021-04-09T15:36:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/?page_id=1044"},"modified":"2023-09-27T20:05:18","modified_gmt":"2023-09-27T20:05:18","slug":"lifelong-management-dr-wilson-szeto","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/lifelong-management-dr-wilson-szeto\/","title":{"rendered":"Surgeon Q&#038;A: The Lifelong Management of Heart Valve Disease with Dr. Wilson Szeto"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The management of heart valve disease can be tricky.<\/p>\n<p>Some patients have symptoms.\u00a0 Other patients are asymptomatic.\u00a0 Some valvular disorders progress slowly.\u00a0 Other valvular disorders progress quickly.\u00a0 Some patients need surgery. Other patients never enter an operating room.\u00a0 Some patients get heart valve repairs. Other patients get heart valve replacements.<\/p>\n<p>To make it even more confusing&#8230; Some patients may need multiple procedures throughout their lifetime.<\/p>\n<p>To learn about the challenges and the opportunities for the lifelong management of heart valve disease, I interviewed <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/surgeons\/dr-Wilson-Szeto-Philadelphia-Pennsylvania-md.php\">Dr. Wilson Szeto<\/a>, the Chief of Cardiovascular Surgery at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/hospital\/penn-medicine\">Penn Presbyterian Medical Center<\/a> in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. During this special video interview, Dr. Szeto revealed many important considerations for heart valve patients, their family members and friends.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/HpSe7ricjUs\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Key Learnings from Dr. Szeto About the Lifelong Management of Heart Valve Disease<\/h2>\n<p>Dr. Szeto shared many important points in this video.\u00a0 Here are the key learnings I jotted down:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Dr. Szeto is heart valve specialist having performed more than 5,000 cardiac procedures and over 2,000 heart valve operations.<\/li>\n<li>According to Dr. Szeto, the management of heart valve disease is a lifelong process, or journey.\u00a0 The initial step in that journey may begin with the detection of a heart murmur when a doctor listens to the patient&#8217;s heart with a stethoscope.<\/li>\n<li>Valve disease progresses at different rates.\u00a0 Most of the time, valvular disorders &#8211; including aortic stenosis and mitral regurgitation &#8211; progress slowly.\u00a0 This provides patients and their doctors a special opportunity to work together, over time, to better understand the nature of the valve disease, the patient&#8217;s needs and their lifelong goals.\u00a0 Dr. Szeto states, &#8220;For most patients, fortunately, it is a slow progression. It allows you to build this bond with your physician, to understand the best treatment options now and also in the future.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Specific to patient emotions&#8230; Dr. Szeto shared that many patients experience feelings of fear and anxiety when diagnosed with heart valve disease.\u00a0 There is also a common, unwarranted belief among patients that they caused their valvular disorder.\u00a0 According to Dr. Szeto, patients frequently ask him, &#8220;What did I do to cause this?&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Dr. Szeto described himself as a &#8220;patient advocate&#8221; when he reflected upon his role helping patients throughout their care. Dr. Szeto stated, &#8220;I think that is what&#8217;s so special in terms of my relationship working with these patients as their patient advocate, trying to reassure them that under the right guidance, working with the right physicians, that your life is going to be okay.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>The development of a lifelong plan for heart valve disease is critical for patients.\u00a0 A key component of that plan is finding a cardiac center that has extensive experience with valvular disorders. At Penn Medicine, Dr. Szeto leverages all available expertise, research and technology within a multi-disciplinary &#8220;Heart Team&#8221; including surgeons, cardiologist, interventional cardiologists, and primary care physicians to benefit the patient.<\/li>\n<li>The patient plays an important role in planning their care.\u00a0 According to Dr. Szeto,\u00a0this creates a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/guidelines-shared-decision-making\/\">shared-decision approach<\/a> which ultimately helps patients and their medical team.<\/li>\n<li>Re-operations can be a key consideration for patients and their medical teams as they develop a lifelong plan for managing heart valve disease.\u00a0 The frequency and\/or likelihood of those operations, also known as re-interventions, is often dependent upon the patient&#8217;s age upon the initial intervention.<\/li>\n<li>Within a lifelong heart valve disease plan, patients and their medical teams need to think about the next 15 to 20 years of the patient&#8217;s life. Dr. Szeto states, &#8220;Understanding not what I can do as a surgeon for you today but also how that impacts your options for re-operation or re-interventions 15 or 20 years later is extremely important. This is really where that shared decision-making comes into play.\u00a0 For me to understand what that patient&#8217;s needs are today and how do I then best position that particular patient to have all possible options in the future for re-interventions is absolutely essential in making sure that this lifelong plan fits a specific patient and is tailored to his or her needs.&#8221;<\/li>\n<li>Advances in medical technology and therapeutic innovations should be part of the planning process for patients and their medical team.<\/li>\n<li>Dr. Szeto&#8217;s key considerations for patients managing valve disease include (i) research your disease, (ii) research your treatment options, (iii) understand your uniqueness, and (iv) trust that you are making the right decisions at the right time.<\/li>\n<li>In his closing remarks, Dr. Szeto stressed that being an informed patient is very important for the lifelong management of heart valve disease.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Thanks Dr. Szeto!!!<\/h2>\n<p>On behalf of our community, I want to extend a huge thank you to Dr. Szeto for taking the time to share his clinical experiences and research specific to the lifelong management of heart valve disease.\u00a0 Dr. Szeto had so many great points about this often over-looked but very important topic for patients.\u00a0 Thanks Dr. Szeto!!!<\/p>\n<p>Related Articles:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/surgeons\/dr-Wilson-Szeto-Philadelphia-Pennsylvania-md.php\">See Dr. Szeto&#8217;s Interactive Surgeon Profile<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/hospital\/penn-medicine\">Explore the Penn Medicine Heart Valve Microsite<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Keep on tickin!<br \/>\nAdam<\/p>\n<p>P.S. For the hearing impaired members of our community, I provided a written transcript of the video below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"cms.php","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"class_list":["post-1044","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","category-adams-updates"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1044","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1044"}],"version-history":[{"count":27,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1044\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3876,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1044\/revisions\/3876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1044"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/learning\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1044"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}