2020-03-07 New Zealand Listener

MARCH 7 2020 LISTENER 37

FOOD

Rice and lentils add

substance to these

flavour-packed

meat-free meals

40

WINE

Winemaker Tamra

Kelly has bounced

back wonderfully

on Waiheke Island

42

PSYCHOLOGY

Conscientiousness

is an important

predictor of

premature death

43

I

n the early days, heart surgery

was extremely cutting edge, the

surgeons who did it were risk-

takers and the death rate was high.

These days, most heart surgery is

“relatively boring and predictable”,

post-operative care is much better

and mortality rates have fallen to 2%

(or lower). During one recent three-

month period at Royal Papworth

Hospital – the UK’s largest specialist

heart and lung centre, where Nashef

has worked since 1992 – the mortality

rate following coronary surgery was

less than 0.5%.

“The technique used for CABG

surgery may not have changed much,

but the ability of surgeons to do it

well has absolutely rocketed.”

That improvement is partly the

result of a project he co-led, devel-

oping a monitoring tool called

EuroSCORE, which is used inter-

nationally to assess a patient’s risk of

dying during or shortly after heart

surgery, and to measure how well

surgeons are performing.

Of course, even experienced

heart surgeons have near misses

and unexpected disasters,

though Nashef is proud of

how well his team works to

snatch patients from the jaws

of death when things do go

wrong. And when they go right

• which is most of the time – it’s
  hugely rewarding.
  “The main reason we become
  doctors is to either make patients feel
  better or to help them live longer – or
  both. In that respect, heart surgery
  is brilliant, because it achieves
  both those things
  more often than any
  other speciality.” l

The Angina

Monologues,

6pm, March

11, Michael

Fowler Centre,

Wellington.

MAKING OLD BONES

Specially tailored post-operative

care can help older people who

have had emergency surgery

recover faster and reduce

their risk of dying. A University

of Alberta study found that

doing things such as removing

urinary bladder tubes as

quickly as possible, prescribing

elder-friendly doses of drugs

and referring patients for an

assessment by a geriatrician

within 48 hours reduced

complications and deaths by

19%. It also reduced the average

length of hospital stays by three

days.

DISHING THE DIRT

Now here’s a reason not to clean:

Canadian scientists have found

that babies who live in houses

where cleaning products are

frequently used during their first

three months are more likely to

develop childhood wheeze and

asthma by the age of three. The

study in the Canadian Medical

Association Journal found that

exposure to air fresheners,

plug-in deodorisers, dusting

sprays, antimicrobial hand

sanitisers and oven cleaners was

particularly problematic.

PACKING IT ON

Lugging a heavy

backpack to, from

and around school

may help build core

strength, according to a

US study comparing the

health of home-schooled

teenagers with that

of teens who attend

school. It found

that those who

attend school

were significantly

better at doing sit-ups

than those who were

home-schooled.

HEALTH BRIEFS

G

ET

TY

(^) IM
AG
ES
Statins are much
more effective at
modifying blood
cholesterol than even
the most draconian
dietary restrictions.
He blames
his coronary
heart disease on
two things – genet-
ics (both his parents
died from heart disease)
and smoking when young. But
despite his diagnosis, he still enjoys salty chips
and fatty burgers – in moderation. “Eat what you
like, but don’t get fat – that would be my pitch.”
Fortunately, even if he does eventually need
a CABG, he can be confident of a success-
ful outcome. Heart surgery is a relatively new
medical speciality. It only became possible in
the 1950s with the invention of the heart-lung
machine, which takes over the role of the heart
and lungs during surgery, oxygenating the
blood and keeping it circulating around the
body while the heart is being operated on.