Frequently Asked Questions
How to Avoid Medication Errors
According to the FDA, drug-related adverse events are responsible for 4 million emergency room visits per year. The cost of these visits exceeds $4 billion per year. More importantly, these medication errors can prove fatal.
Tips to Avoid Medication Errors
- Bring your medications with you on EVERY Doctor visit.
- It doesn’t matter if it’s a brown paper bag like this. Bring them all.
- If you were in the Hospital, bring the list of medications that was provided to you.
- If you were in the Hospital, bring the list of medications that was provided to you.
- If you were in the Hospital, bring the list of medications that was provided to you.
Importance of Doctor Visits
Watch Dr. Nanavati talk about the six things that you should know before and during your doctor visit.
- Reports
- Medications
- Allergies
- Hospital visits
- Examination
- See Your Doctor
Just One Puff
The Surgeon General Regina Benjamin declared on December 9, 2010 that smoking can kill. We all have known this for many years back in the 1970s when C. Evert Coop was the Surgeon General. What's new in this report is how damaging cigarette smoking can be to a person, particularly a heart patient. "In someone with heart disease, one cigarette can cause a heart attack." This makes cigarette smoking as harmful as a gunshot to the heart. Until this report came out, this degree of potency was never previously declared.
is the annual cost in health care and lost productivity in the US due to cigarette smoking.
deaths are attributed to tobacco annually.
of Lung Cancers are due to cigarette smoking.
teenagers smoke their first cigarette each day.
Americans are killed by tobacco per year.
Healthy Tips for Dining Out
Eating out has become an unavoidable and in some households a regular event. As a Cardiologist, I strongly encourage my patients to dine at home and eat home-cooked meals. There are volumes of books on diet and "heart-healthy eating." Before going to bookstores and purchasing all those titles, try reading these dining-out tips. I have compiled a few practical tips when on a necessary meal out.
All fine restaurants have certain common dishes that are inevitably on the menu. Based on this observation, I make the following recommendations on how to maintain a heart-healthy diet when dining out:
- Eat the larger portion of your meal at home where you know the food is healthy. When it comes time to eat dinner at a restaurant, you don’t want to go there famished with a large appetite.
- Don’t order appetizers.
- Eat less of the bread and rolls they routinely provide. If you do eat the bread, don’t put butter on it.
- When ordering the main dish, choose fish—especially freshwater fish like Salmon or Halibut. Tell the waiter to have the cook not baste or apply butter. Instead, use lemon juice or olive oil.
- If you want to eat chicken, make sure the skin is removed and the chicken is washed before cooking. Don’t eat fried chicken: that has more fat than a side of lean beef.
- If they have a vegetarian platter choice on the menu: go for it.
- When the waiter asks you what food you want on the side, choose veggies like asparagus or a baked potato rather than French fries or coleslaw.
- If you do order beef, make sure it is the leanest portion and then order medium/well done. Eating red meat should be a once-a-year occasion, not a routine staple of your diet. I recommend not eating beef or fried chicken ever.
- Avoid condiments like bacon bits, bacon, or mayonnaise on your burger. Mustard and ketchup are fine.
- Don’t order a dessert. If you are absolutely fixated on having dessert, order something with fruit or sorbet.
- Don’t add sugar to your coffee or any other beverage you may order.
- When ordering a salad, choose vinaigrette on the side rather than mixed into the salad. This allows you to control how much dressing you use.