TO THE EDITOR
In response to the article: “Too many Tests?
Routine medical exams get second look.I read this article twice and I am border line on this. Yes, everyone should question medical test being done if you are not “At Risk”. But there are times good Doctors are really concern and want to know what is going on with their patient.
My child was an active child played City Recreation basketball since 5 years old, Jr. and High School basket ball and softball, also was in Pizzazi Ladies and Impact Choir at DB. The fall of 2000 first semester of school, a healthy (Not At Risk) athletic 18 year old VI college student comes into her doctor’s office and says she has blacked out twice, the coach and trainer will not let her come back to practice until they figure out why.
She was not an at risk patient, only health history she had was asthma and severe allergies. With every test she ran came back normal. She referred her to the Heart Center and they ran test and it came back normal.
Both Dr. Susanne Toyne and Dr. Brian Armstrong were not satisfied.
With persistence they continued to find out what was going on. He ordered an Electrophysiology Study and a Right Heart Catheterization on my child. Finally they found she had an anomalous left main coronary artery coming off the right coronary cusp. I was told this was a birth defect! She was also told she would not be able to play sports any more. She was sent to Duke for surgery and they repaired her problem and to this date you cannot tell she had any problems at all except for the scar as a reminder.
I praise those doctors for saving my child's life. She had to redshirt her first year in college from playing both softball and basketball. But her second year she was back on the court and field. There have been a couple college and professional basketball and football players that had the same problem. For them it was too late and they did not discover their problem until an autopsy was done.
Athletic School physicals also don’t catch everything. So to the people in Washington, please be very careful in your decision when you go to vote and make these types of decisions. Weigh all the options, encourage people to ask and question doctors on test being ordered. There are some good doctors out there.
That article really concerns me and I hope that it concerns others as well.
Charlene Hodge, Kingsport
