Today is the first day of American Heart Month - and one Arizona cardiology nurse practitioner wants to shed light on the importance of good heart health, and in knowing life-saving hands-only CPR.
Mia Chorney is a volunteer with the American Heart Association in Phoenix, and has experienced her own cardiac event - but today she wants to help raise awareness.
She said each year across the country more than 350,000 people die from cardiac arrest, which includes about 23,000 children.
"About 90% of people who suffer an out of hospital cardiac arrest pass away," said Chorney. "So CPR, especially if it is performed immediately, can double or even triple a cardiac arrest victim's chance of survival."
The American Heart Association has a goal of doubling the cardiac arrest survival rate by 2030 - which is why they're pushing for every family and home to have someone who knows CPR and how to properly use an automated external defibrillator.
Chorney encouraged folks to take an online CPR course, watch a 60-second hands-only CPR instructional video, or find a CPR class near you by visiting heart.org/nation.
Chorney said only 38% of cardiovascular clinical research trial participants were women as of 2020.
She added that knowing your health history and making the appropriate lifestyle changes can help to diminish the frequency of cardiovascular disease in women - which, according to the American Heart Association, claims the life of one woman every 80 seconds.
Chorney said people of color also face racial disparities which must be addressed.
"When we are looking at racial disparities," said Chorney. "We know that certain populations have higher incidence of high blood pressure, internal mortality, especially our African American populations having higher statistics in that."
There are a number of things you can do to improve health outcomes - like managing your blood pressure, getting active, and controlling your cholesterol by eating better.
Chorney said Wear Red Day is tomorrow, and as the name implies, it's a day for people to wear something red in an effort to raise awareness about heart disease.
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A Chicago mom who lost her son to cancer in 2022 is using the occasion of Mother's Day to call on Illinois lawmakers to pass medical aid-in-dying legislation.
Suzy Flack's 34-year-old son Andrew was a special-education teacher and avid hockey player living in California when he learned his cancer was terminal. Rather than return to his home state, he stayed in California, where medical aid-in-dying is legal.
Now, with such legislation under consideration by Illinois lawmakers, Suzy Flack is using social media to urge its passage.
"Like I said in the video, I didn't realize how horrific cancer was," she said. "So, I would really like to stress that that comfort level that he had because he had the control over his death."
The legislation would allow mentally capable, terminally ill adults with six months or less to live the option to request a prescription for medication they could use to end their life.
According to a 2023 survey by the group Compassion & Choices, more than 70% of Illinois residents support such a law, while 17% would oppose it.
With no legal way to end his life in his home state, Flack said her son was unwilling to leave California because he wanted a peaceful death.
"That option of having the medication was strong enough to keep him there, despite missing his family," she said, "and certainly, it would have been easier for all of us if he had been back in Illinois."
In addition to California, medical aid-in-dying is authorized in ten other states and Washington, D.C., while two additional states - Wisconsin and Massachusetts - are considering legalization. The Chicago-based American Medical Association has not endorsed the legislation.
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It's National Nurses Week, and educators and healthcare officials say there just aren't enough of them to go around. A combination of retiring baby boomers and nurses who chose to leave the field after the pandemic has left a projected shortfall of more than 5,400 nurses in Nebraska's hospitals, clinics and long-term care facilities.
Linda Hardy, Nebraska Nurses Association president, explained that the system is not training enough new nurses to fill the vacancies.
"I think across the country we have a nursing shortage," she intoned. "But the other thing we have a shortage of are nurse educators - and also, clinical sites for student nurses to be able to practice their clinical skills."
According to a Nebraska Health Care Workforce Collaborative report, 66 of the state's 93 counties have been declared medically underserved, and nine have no nurses. The report points to degraded "emotional health and well-being" as the main reason for staff shortages.
Hardy added healthcare providers and state officials are studying how to increase the investment in educational facilities and clinical sites to train new healthcare workers, and said one goal is to recruit them when they are young.
"There's a collaborative effort to try and get more healthcare workers, not just nurses but radiology techs, pharmacists, etcetera, into the pipeline from high school kids. So, that's a good thing," she insisted.
Carole Johnson, administrator of the Health Resources and Services Administration, said her mission during National Nurses Week is to highlight the vital role nurses play on the front lines, providing care, comfort and support to patients every day, but added the best way to honor them is to support them from training through retirement.
"You have to be investing in the nursing workforce. And so we're providing scholarships, loan repayment, stipends, upskilling - a whole host of training initiatives to really help ensure that we can recruit people into nursing and that when they're there, that they stay," she continued.
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Birth doulas assist new moms with the stress, uncertainty and anxiety of childbirth, while another type of doula offers similar support to those who are dying.
Death doulas, or end-of-life specialists, give spiritual and emotional support to people nearing death in a nonmedical setting. The word 'doula' comes from the Greek word 'doule,' meaning 'female helper.'
Kim Burgess, end-of-life doula and board certified adult geriatric nurse practitioner for Comforting Transitions, an elder care facility in O'Fallon, said fulfilling a dying person's wish to be in their desired setting is important.
"When I was in the home, primarily geriatric population, people wanted to stay in their home; the comfort of their home, their own surrounding, their own food, their own loved ones," Burgess explained. "I loved to being able to support people in that role."
Training to become an end-of-life doula happens in workshops, with required reading and work-study assignments. Since it is not a federally recognized field, insurance companies do not cover the services. The Illinois Department of Public Health said in 2022, Cook County alone saw nearly 46,000 deaths. Almost 20,000 were between ages 65 and 84.
Death, or what is sometimes called "the other side," can produce feelings of fear, or a sense of denial, especially if a terminal condition has been diagnosed. Burgess observed it is a 24-hour job for loved ones helping someone in their final days or weeks. She has encountered families who are unprepared for the caregiving needs.
"A lot of times, their family is saying, 'We're just overwhelmed, and we have hospice involved, but we still feel like we need some more support,'" Burgess recounted. "An end-of-life doula can be there, giving the family reassurance or making some slight suggestions on how to comfort their loved one."
Doulas can also help plan an advance directive, instructions a person can leave behind about their funeral service or cremation, what to do with a pet or help writing a loving message to family and friends.
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