Keeping it Real
As Cardiovascular Business enters its second decade, our team has been pondering what the magazine’s pre-teen and teen years will be like. Are we looking at dignified maturity or awkward adolescence?
Maybe because I have two teenagers at home, the future feels both terrifying and exhilarating. There is something both sad and wonderful about watching your babies become young adults. I’ve decided my approach to helping CVB thrive in its second decade should resemble that of raising my kids: Keep it real. Accept there will be mistakes, so learn from them. Savor the moments.
CVB readers are the common variable for achieving each of these goals. Keeping it real comes down to you, the clinicians, administrators, staff, patients and families who are living cardiology day in and day out. My goal for every issue of CVB is to give voice to your ideas and concerns, wins and losses—in other words, your wisdom. You’ll find three examples in this issue:
1. Real life: In a special contribution to accompany this issue’s cover story, cardiologist Sunil Rao, MD, and his teenage daughter Ava generously share their very personal perspective on diabetes mellitus. I thank them for their candor.
2. Real problem: Today’s transparency tools are not working. Despite developers’ best intentions—to arm patients with information that will empower them and reduce potentially devastating hits to their finances (and reduce healthcare costs overall)—the tools are falling short. Health economist Anna D. Sinaiko, PhD, talked with me at length about how to improve these tools and their utlization.
3. Real talk: We’re debuting a series that will take on look-the-other-way, make-you-squirm (or scream) challenges that healthcare leaders face. First up: gender bias in physician compensation. Check it out and consider contacting me to share your Real Talk story.
My second goal, learning from mistakes, also relies in part on you. Please tell me about our errors and oversights, send suggestions and recommend story angles. Thank you in advance for helping us get better.
And, finally, there’s the recognition that, for decades, CVB and I have (mostly separately) enjoyed the the benefits of working with cardiology’s brain trust. You have made my work days challenging, never boring and well worth savoring. I’m looking forward to many more conversations with you.
Kathy joined TriMed in 2015 as the editor of Cardiovascular Business magazine. She has nearly two decades of experience in publishing and public relations, concentrating in cardiovascular care. Before TriMed, Kathy was a senior director at the Society for Cardiovascular Angiography and Interventions (SCAI). She holds a BA in journalism. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two children.