New surgery guides for patients A new Canadian medical publishing company dedicated to helping surgery patients launches its first title in Toronto on November 1. SCRIPT Medical Press Inc. was founded last year by award-winning Canadian medical writer and CSWA member Helen Byrt PhD to create the What Happens Next?™ surgery guide series. Unlike most health books, which focus on diseases, the What Happens Next?™ surgery guides focus on procedures: step-by-step, drug by drug, everything a patient needs to know. The first title, So You're Having Angioplasty- What Happens Next?, is authored by Toronto cardiologist Stephen Fort MD and Victoria Foulger, a chartered herbalist and former cardiology nurse. "The aim of the What Happens Next? guides is to empower patients to take control of their lives," said Helen Byrt. "We show people what their options are, so they can make fully informed choices at every stage of their treatment." "Although there are over 30,000 angioplasties each year in Canada, and almost 700,000 in the USA, amazingly there are no books covering this subject," said author Dr. Stephen Fort, a cardiologist at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre in Toronto. "We were delighted to have the chance to meet that need." Angioplasty is a technique used in patients with heart disease to open up blocked blood vessels in their heart. It involves passing a fine tube into the heart through an arm or leg, then inflating a small balloon inside the blocked artery. This is often followed by the insertion of a metal coil (called a 'stent') into the blood vessel to help keep the vessel open. Angioplasty is done under a local anesthetic and the patient is awake the whole time, so it is an increasingly popular alternative to bypass surgery, which is a major operation and involves a general anesthetic. So You're Having Angioplasty - What Happens Next? covers everything about the procedure, including the causes of heart disease, how it is diagnosed, how to prepare for hospital, the procedure itself, the equipment involved, and what patients can expect during the recovery period. There are also chapters that help patients decide whether angioplasty is the right choice for them-and whether their angioplasty has worked. An extensive self-help chapter also gives scientifically based advice on complementary therapies for heart disease. The book comes complete with a glossary of medical words, a who's who of hospital staff, an index and a patient diary where patients can chart their recovery. So You're Having Angioplasty - What Happens Next? is available in bookstores and on-line through Indigo.Chapters.ca., and was produced with the support of an unconditional educational grant from Eli Lilly Canada, a pharmaceutical company, and JOMED Canada, a medical device company. "We went the sponsorship route because it enabled us to do the best job possible in this challenging book publishing climate," said Helen Byrt. "JOMED and Eli Lilly were totally supportive of the concept." Posted: January 22, 2002