Interventions to improve women's outcomes

Gender bias and heart disease

Author and Lecturer Dr. Mehmet Oz Will Give Keynote

January 22, 2003, New Brunswick, NJ--The Women's Heart Foundation and Robert Wood Johnson Medical School will co-sponsor a medical conference, February 3, that addresses a range of critical issues about cardiovascular disease in women, including growing concerns of gender bias in disease management and critical care.

According to the Lou-Anne Beauregard, MD, FACC and Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine, UMDNJ/ Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and a medical advisor to the Women's Heart Foundation, there is a critical a need to educate women about gender bias.

"Women need to know about the manifestations of heart disease for us, as women, as well as to have a better understanding of epidemiological and clinical research that is taking place in these areas," she said.

The conference, entitled Getting To The Heart Of It: Interventions To Improve Women's Outcomes, will include presentations on the incidence of cardiac arrhythmia in pregnancy. This is of growing concern as the expectations of society demand that women have children and stay in the workforce.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, author of the critically acclaimed book, Healing from the Heart, will translate his "east-west" philosophy for healthcare delivery to the cardiac population as a whole. Other presentations include:
� Evolution of use of estrogen for heart disease in women
� Gender bias, care delays and delay in referral for management of acute myocardial infarction in women
� Prevalence of shortness of breath in women, and issues of congestive heart failure, diastolic dysfunction and transplantation
� Problems applying modern technology to women and issues of heart surgery, angioplasty, complications and mortality
� Cardiac arrhythmias in women: an overview
� Pregnancy and cardiac arrhythmias
� Pacemaker and ICD in women: are they underutilized?
� Drugs and arrhythmias in women
� Unifying healthcare: how improving healthcare for women will improve healthcare for all

The UMDNJ - Robert Wood Johnson Medical School Clinical Academic Building is located at 125 Paterson Street in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Registration will take place in the lobby.

The seminar is open to health professionals only. The cost of registration is $75 for physicians and $60 for residents, fellows, nurses and other healthcare providers. Registration can be completed on at www.womensheartfoundation.org . Registration begins 11:30 A.M. until noon. The program will adjourn at 7:00 P.M.