Download this quick clip on iTunes, SoundCloud or via RSS feed
In this week’s Inside EMS podcast quick clip, hosts Chris Cebollero and Kelly Grayson discuss a new, experimental drug against heart failure.
In the study, 26.5 percent on the older, ACE inhibitor drug, enalapril, died of heart-related causes or were hospitalized for heart failure, versus less than 22 percent of those on the new Novartis drug. Quality of life also was better with the experimental drug.
“Now that I’m going to be 50-years-old next year, I’m due to get congestive heart failure probably next Thursday,” Cebollero joked. “So at least I know there’s going to be a new drug out there.”
He also questioned why it’s taken so long to make this discovery.
“Why wasn’t this found five years ago?” Cebollero asked. It’s an indication, he said, of how quickly the medical field is evolving, and how much we still have to learn.
“It just goes to show that there’s so much more that can happen in medicine that we’re not even to the pinnacle, I think, of what we do,” Cebollero said.
Grayson agreed, saying it’s also one of the biggest disservices to people entering the EMS. Professors need to place more emphasis on current research in order to better prepare students with the latest professional knowledge.
“What they’re reading in that text book and what we’re talking about in class, about 50 percent of it is wrong already — we just don’t know which 50 percent,” Grayson said. “And the stuff we are talking about is already about five to 10 years behind the times.”
