AT AGE 78, JAMES LAWRENCE
wasn’t too concerned when
he woke up one morning in
March with pain in his back.
Te owner of a small land-
scaping company, he chalked
it up to sore muscles and
went about his day mowing
lawns.
But as Lawrence contin-
ued to work, he began feeling
progressively worse.
“I had to stop several
times to rest,” the Beaufort
resident recalls. “I just wore out.”
A retired Marine, he decided to go to
the Naval Hospital Beaufort emergency
room to determine what was causing the
pain and fatigue. It turned out Lawrence
was having a heart attack. Te ER staf
stabilized him and sent him to Beaufort
Memorial.
Forget the stereotypes
“Tere are as many patients who come
in with atypical symptoms as those who
come in with classic heart attack symp-
toms,” says David Harshman, MD, the
cardiologist who treated Lawrence at
BMH. “In the 32 years I’ve been practicing,
I’ve seen just about everything.”
Lawrence had sufered a non-ST
elevation myocardial infarction (STEMI),
a heart condition caused when a coronary
artery is partially blocked by a blood clot.
In this type of heart attack, only a portion
of the heart muscle being supplied by the
afected artery is damaged.
Dr. Harshman gave him the blood-
thinning drug Heparin and antiplatelet
agents that block the formation of blood
clots. But the treatment only served
to temporarily stabilize Lawrence.
It would be necessary to open up the
partially blocked artery with coronary
intervention.
A lifesaving partnership
An afliate of Duke University Health
System, BMH has collaborated with the
prestigious Duke Heart Network to develop
a top-rated heart program, ofering a full
range of diagnostic services, including
cardiac catheterization. But, due to state
regulations, the hospital’s Cochrane Heart
Center does not yet have the capability to
ofer interventional cardiology, including
the placement of coronary stents.
“If a patient needs a higher level of ser-
vice, we have the mechanism to provide
them access to that service,” says Daniel
Mock, BMH’s senior director of cardio-
vascular and imaging services. “All four
of our interventional doctors have clini-
cal relationships to do their interven-
tional work at nearby tertiary hospitals.”
Dr. Harshman and his partner Tomas
Schultz, DO, of Beaufort Cardiology,
both perform their interventions at
Roper St. Francis Health Care System
in Charleston. Cardiologist Stuart
Smalheiser, MD, of Lowcountry Medical
Group, works at Medical University of
To learn
more about
cardiology
services at
BMH, call
843-522-7700
or go online to
www.bmhsc
.org/heart.
—continued on page 14
James Lawrence
Doctor Referral Service: 888-522-5585 • Health Scene
13
Committed
to cardiology