Heads and tales: Who’s running the joint?
By Wade Kwon
All heart: When the top athletes need surgery to save their multi-million-dollar careers, they come to Birmingham. Jim Andrews, one of the world’s top orthopedic surgeons, has saved many a knee, shoulder and elbow. So who minds the Birmingham doctor when he’s in trouble? Sports blog Deadspin discovered in a news report about Astros first baseman Jeff Bagwell that his surgeon, Andrews, had a heart attack on Sunday. It goes on to report that he’s in intensive care. A report in the Houston Chronicle also mentions Andrews’ heart attack in passing. But the item has yet to make news in this market.
Update
The Birmingham News and NBC 13 slip in quick updates. Not to mention a press release on the good doctor.
• Palmer’s dad: Surgery went well [Cincinnati Enquirer]
Cardiac, a rest: Shelby Baptist Medical Center wanted to keep its 18-month-old open-heart program, but Brookwood Medical Center challenged in court. Which led to Shelby challenging Brookwood’s $54 million renovation/expansion project. The two health care conglomerates buried the hatchet, allowing each to continue on its merry way. The real winner? Not patients.
• Baptist, Brookwood settle Shelby feud [Birmingham News]
Hics-ville: Didja hear the one about the guy who had hiccups for three years? He lost 50 pounds and wanted to kill himself. Robert Smith, a 53-year-old maintenance worker in Montgomery, lived with this miserable condition, until a New Orleans neurosurgeon implanted a nerve stimulator in Smith’s chest. The hiccups disappeared. All because one doctor came up with a creative use for a device designed to treat epilepsy.
• A Horrific Case of Hiccups, a Novel Treatment [New York Times]
Also:
- Birmingham economic forecast calls for partly solvent, chance of sell-off
- It’s all fun, games until someone loses
- Chimp remains mum on gubernatorial candidacy
• • •
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Thursday, January 12, 2006, 10:17 pm
It is odd that it has yet to make news around here…
Here’s the info I got today from someone VERY close to the family:
Dr. Andrews first felt the chest pains Sunday before church.
He began to realize that it was a heart attack and his wife called 911.
An ambulance just happened to be close by.
The ambulance drivers wanted to take him to Brookwood, but he insisted that they take him to St. Vincent’s (where he himself works).
The cardiologist on call just so happened to be at the hospital finishing up another case (they don’t normally just sit around the hospital on Sunday’s waiting for heart attacks).
Dr. Andrews went immediately into the care of the cardiologist where I assume he underwent a procedure in the cath-lab to remove the blockage.
Apparently it was the “widow maker” artery that was blocked as well.
Everything fell into place for him, he was very lucky.
Thursday, January 12, 2006, 10:49 pm
Thanks for the update! (He probably also skipped Brookwood because it’s too damn expensive.)