few symptoms,” he explains. “So now we’re bypassing insurance companies and offering those tests ourselves, at a price people can actually afford.” Dr. Gray has offered in-office stress testing since 1985, but by purchasing additional state-of-the-art equipment and hiring a staff of trained technicians, he now offers a complete heart, lung and circulation screening that can help determine your own cardiovascular health. The following tests are completed in a single visit and at a price that’s discounted substantially off the traditional several thousand dollar total price tag:
• an EKG
• resting echocardiogram
• stress echocardiogram, if appropriate
• pulmonary function test
•peripheral vascular circulation screening
Who Should Take the New Tests? According to Dr. Gray, one-third of serious congenital heart problems go undiagnosed into adulthood. As a result, the screenings are recommended for all athletes 18-25—at least one time. “I want to see an ultrasound of the heart before a young man or young woman gets involved in serious athletics,” Dr. Gray insists. “This concern has given rise to books like ‘The Home Field Advantage,’ which addresses athletes dying of sudden cardiac arrest.”
“The single credo of osteopathy is that ‘the rule of the artery is supreme,’” he explains. “In other words, circulation is the key to everything.”
“As a result, women are much more likely to die of a first heart attack than men are.”
Dr. Gray is one of the only family
doctors in the nation with an ICAEL
accreditation (the Intersocietal Commission for the Accreditation of Echocardiography
Laboratories). He attended the Kirksville
College of Osteopathic Medicine—where
osteopathy was developed—and did a rotating internship at Sandusky Memorial Hospital. He has devoted a great deal of his continuing education and practice to cardiovascular and female health, and he studied at the Cleveland Clinic under the renowned Vijay Mistry, MD, FACC.
And although he’s had his own practice for 30 years, this year is going to be different. Taking Control of Your Health
Instead of allowing insurance companies to dictate the cardiovascular health of his community, Dr. Gray is taking matters into his own hands.
“Insurance companies have put too many restrictions on cardiovascular testing for patients with substantial risk factors, but
“When it comes to heart disease, women in the U.S. have always received second class care,” Dr. Gray says. “It’s getting a lot better, but in spite of the facts, heart disease is often still considered a man’s problem.” Dr. Gray points to research indicating that in a hospital emergency room men complaining of chest pain have always been more likely to receive a cardiac catheterization than women with the same symptom. “It’s terribly sexist, but a woman with chest pains was simply considered to be a Nervous Nellie,” he laments. “Part of the problem is that women experience atypical symptoms of heart disease. They often don’t get the classic radiating pain or tingling like men do, so their symptoms can go unnoticed. As a result, women are much more likely to die of a first heart attack than men are.”
“It’s terribly sexist, but a
woman with chest pains was
simply considered to be a
Nervous Nellie.”
So why is a 30-year veteran family physician like Dr. Gray so interested in heart disease? One reason is that every seven seconds a woman in her thirties drops dead of cardiac arrest from undiagnosed heart disease. Another reason is that Dr. Gray is a D.O., a Doctor of Osteopathy.
by MimiVanderhaven
Quick, what’s the number one killer of women? Breast cancer? Diabetes? Nope. It’s heart disease. In fact, according to physician Dr. John Gray, heart disease kills nine times as many women as breast cancer.
Dr. John Gray received his board certification in family practice in 1989. The Consumer’s Research Council named him one of America’s top family doctors for 2004, 2007, 2008 2009, and 2010. His screenings are already saving lives.
