the Family Heart Foundation at Grand Rounds – Hackensack University Medical Center – Hackensack, NJ

FH Advocate for Awareness, Diane Davis, joined Family Heart Foundation Board Member Seth Baum, MD at Hackensack University Medical Center in NJ as part of our Grand Rounds Program to raise awareness of familial hypercholesterolemia in the medical community. With an audience of about 100 medical professionals, Dr. Baum gave his Grand Rounds lecture on FH and Diane shared her personal and family story of living with FH:

“I was 10 years old when I visited my uncle in the hospital after his first cardiac event, he was in his forties. Shortly thereafter my father went to the hospital for cardiac issues. In my teens I watched as my father’s brothers went through bypass surgery. I was 18 years old when my father experienced sudden death on a tennis court. He is thankfully alive and well, we’ll hear more about that in a minute, but this is all to say that FH and heart disease has had an enormous effect on my life. I am fully aware this is a very real and present disorder. I am very grateful to be aware of it, and I am so happy to have events like this where we can raise awareness. I can’t tell you how many people in my life, some doctors included, have suggested I control my FH through diet and exercise. Those things are important of course, and I do them, but I know they are not enough for me. The truth is that I must be treated with medication, and I must be treated early and aggressively.”

Many thanks to Dr. Baum and the Hackensack University Medical Center for this opportunity to raise awareness of FH.