About hearts (part 1)

It was an afternoon session. And my writing brain started working. So, instead of contemplating electronic records and their advantages - which the speaker quite brilliantly described - I started writing more than quotes (on paper, which in itself is unusual).

These are my initial thoughts from today's American College of Cardiology (ACC.10) meeting held at the Georgia World Congress Center, written during an afternoon session:

I think I've hurt my shoulder. Between American Heart Association books, thick programs, a bound stack of late breaking press releases, cocoa powder full of flavonoids, squishy stress toys (2 to be exact), my Canon 30D, a reporter's notebook, a steno pad and an audio recorder 10 times the size of most iPods, I've hauled around a lot today. Thank goodness I left the laptop in the car this morning.

The stress is squashing my knees. All this is a good reminder of why it's important to stay active and relatively thin. That and the 20 or so hearts I saw on display at the expo that listed their former owners' age, weight, medical issues (including extreme obesity) and cause of death (I would have taken a picture, but they weren't allowing that. And I didn't want anybody to hurl on their computers). Yep, I want to be the normal heart among the bunch if it ever comes to that.

I've never seen a naked human heart on display. I think in a jar or while dissecting a pig or a cat is as close as I've gotten. It was pretty cool. And gross. Hearts wrapped in fat look pretty icky.

Something else I realized once again is that cardiology is a very well-paid career. The size and structure and effort of some of the displays at the Expo cost more than my yearly salary at UGA. Seriously.

I also realized I don't ever want to be a cardiologist (not that I'm ready for any kind of medical school, but, you know). Looking at all that information - from both the vendors and the researchers - it's like jumping into a murky pool of info, with so much to know, so many techniques to perfect, so many drug makers/machine manufacturers/etc. vying for their attention.

I did like meeting and talking to several medical journalists - including a stare-down pep talk with Trends-in-Medicine editor Lynne Peterson (a really awesome stare-down pep talk, I might add). I'd like to be one of those intense medical/health writers - that, or an epidemiologist who studies the strange culture of cardiologists.

That's Lynne in the blond hair, typing furiously away at a late-breaking clinical trials press conference. I took this photo before I met her.

Tomorrow, Part 2: A photo essay of the day. I plan to overwhelm with pictures.