Gregory Chapman, M.D., a professor in the University of Alabama at Birmingham’s Division of Cardiovascular Disease and cardiologist at the UAB Cardiovascular Institute, provides an insider’s perspective on the field of cardiovascular medicine in his new book “A Strong & Steady Pulse: Stories from a Cardiologist.”
Each chapter of the book is based on real-life patients and experiences that Chapman has seen during his three decades as a cardiologist and professor of medicine. Chapman’s inspiration for writing this collection of medical essays and patient vignettes was a wish to provide general readers and health care workers with a better understanding of cardiac disease, its diagnosis and treatment and insights into medical decision-making.
“Writing this book has been gratifying and meaningful work,” Chapman said. “I have always used my stories as teaching tools in this profession, so I decided to put them into book form. My purpose through this book is to share beneficial cardiovascular and medical information with caregivers, patients and trainees, so they can better understand cardiac disease and contributing risk factors.”
Each of Chapman’s stories present a patient and their initial visit and walks readers through his evaluation and the steps taken to determine the underlying problem. Topics addressed include the recognition and management of heart attack, heart failure, arrhythmia, valvular heart disease, cardiac transplantation, broken heart syndrome, hypertension and the depression some people experience after a heart attack. The emergence of COVID-19 and its disruption of normal hospital routines is also addressed in an epilogue.
This book is available on the University of Alabama Press website or on Amazon.