It's Wayne Mauser, local news.
Good morning.
I'm Wayne Mauser for Civic Media News.
Final pickup of storm-related organic waste and construction materials begins in Nina Monday at 6 a.m.
and will continue through the rest of next week.
Materials should be ready by that time as crews will begin picking them up throughout the week until all storm-impacted areas have had one final pass.
After Friday, September 4, residents may be responsible for the removal of materials from their property.
In addition to organic waste, storm debris may include loose materials such as
siding, roof shingles, construction wood, fencing, and other loose construction materials damaged by the storm.
City crews will not be picking up dirt piles or chipped wood piles.
Those materials can be taken to the Winnebago County Solid Waste Facility at 105 West County Road Y in Oshkosh.
Residents are also asked to keep gutters clear of yard waste.
The city street sweepers are not able to clear those materials.
Yard waste materials and the gutters may back up storm sewers.
Governor Tony Evers has formally requested a disaster declaration from President Donald Trump for the July 27th tornado that ravaged parts of the Fox Valley.
In addition to the damage in Audigame and Winnebago counties from the EF-3 twister and the storm that spawned it, Evers office said there was damage in forests and vilas counties in northern Wisconsin as well.
The request includes individual assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency for effectant households, public assistance for emergency work and infrastructure repairs in vilas and winnebago counties, and help from FEMA's hazard mitigation grant program to reduce the impact of
future disasters for the entire state.
Preliminary damage assessments of more than 2,300 residential properties by FEMA and Wisconsin Emergency Management estimated a total of more than $8.2 million in damage.
Another $13.8 million in damage was estimated to have been caused to public sector infrastructure.
Nearly $13.3 million of the total verified damage was in Winnebago County.
The request for federal aid comes after evers to
the state of emergency following the storm and activated the Wisconsin National Guard to help with cleanup and relief efforts.
Evers also declared a period of abnormal economic disruption and effort to fight price couching.
The race for Wisconsin governor remains close.
According to a Marquette University Law School poll released on Wednesday, among likely voters, Democratic-Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley led Republican U.S.
Representative Tom Tiffany 49-44% with 7% undecided.
Among all, the poll's margin of error for all voters
was four percentage points.
During their August 17th meeting, the Ripon area school district approved a question and resolution to stage an operational referendum on November 3rd.
Bob Nelson reports for Civic Media News.
It would succeed to expiring referendums previously passed by voters.
The referendum is tax neutral, but district business manager Jonah Adams says due to drops in aid from the state, there will be an increase in the millage rate, which will result in an increase in property taxes of $7 more per $100,000 of value on a home.
Our equalization aid is going to drop
by more than $300,000.
And so what ends up happening when the state aid goes down, local property taxes go up.
District Superintendent Ron Revard says the community has had a long history of supporting the two referendums that are sunsetting over the next year and a half.
Historically, we've been passing operational referendums consistently for the last 17 years.
Robert says between now and the end of October they'll be doing information sessions on the referendum with as many different groups as they can.
I'm Bob Nelson reporting for
Civic Media News.
forms are available on the city's website or can be picked up at City Hall.
The Common Council will hold the nomination meeting at 6.30 p.m.
Tuesday, September 8 in the council chambers of City Hall.
Applicants will be interviewed and the Common Council may vote to appoint the new Alderperson.
According to Wisconsin's Department of Workforce Development, unemployment rates for July increased in 22 of the state's 72 counties, decreased in 25 counties and stayed the same in the remaining 25 counties.
The inconsistency was reflected in jobless rates in area counties
Dodge County's rate decreased to 2.7% and Green Lake County's rate to 3.3%.
According to federal labor statistics, unemployment rates held steady at 3.2% in Fond du Lac County, 3.3% in Winnebago County, and 3.5% in Washera County.
The jobless rate in Wapaka County increased to 3.2%.
Meanwhile, the unemployment rate last month decreased in the city of Oshkosh to 3.4 percent and increased in the city of Fond du Lac to 3.7
percent.
This time for federal disaster aid after July storms in the Fox Valley.
The governor is seeking help for people and communities in forest, out-of-gamey, Vilas and Winnebago counties.
State and federal damage reviews estimate more than $8 million in residential losses and nearly $14 million in public sector damage.
The request follows an EF-3 tornado in the Monash-Appleton area, along with high winds, hail, power outages, and water system problems.
Wisconsin is part of a proposed $17 billion settlement with Metta that aims to make Facebook and Instagram safer for children.
It'll send up to $313 million to the state.
The agreement follows a multi-state investigation into claims that Metta knew its products could harm young users, but failed to do enough to protect them.
The settlement must first be approved by a court.
The Wisconsin State Fair is reporting an increase in attendance.
More than 925,000 visitors were counted during this year's 11-day event in West Dallas, an increase compared to last year's edition.
However, the number is well short of the record of more than 1.1 million fairgoers in 2024.
That was the third consecutive year the fair saw at least one million visitors, but is now falling short of that mark for the second straight year.
Next year's event is scheduled to take place from August 5th to August 15th.
Badger football games are adding competition to the concession stands.
Fans will be treated to new menu items this season that's called Battle of the Dogs, where a new hot dog will be introduced each home game based on Wisconsin's opponent.
That includes the Michigan State Spicy Spartan Dog and Rutgers Fat Dog.
Camp Randall Stadium will be offering other new menu items this year, such as the Badgers Cheeseburger and Taki Street Corn.
A woman convicted in the Slenderman stabbing case wants out again.
Now, 24-year-old Morgan Geyser's attorney is once again filing a petition for her conditional release.
A Waukesha County judge formally signed off on Geyser's conditional release in July of 2025.
She was placed in a Madison Group home the following September and escaped from it in November.
Geyser was found at a truck stop outside of Chicago and returned to Wisconsin a few days later.
Her conditional release was revoked December 23rd of 2025.
Measles cases in southwestern Wisconsin continue to increase.
The latest update from the Wisconsin Department of Health Services says the number now stands at 61, including 17 probable cases of the illness.
Iowa County has 35 confirmed cases, while Grant and Lafayette counties are also impacted by the outbreak.
DHS officials say residents need to be aware of measles if they haven't already been notified of being directly exposed.
Wisconsin anglers may need to change which fish they take home and eat under new state health guidance.
The DNR and Department of Health Services have released an updated Choose Wisely booklet with fish consumption advice for waters across the state.
Some areas, including parts of the Yajara River chain and the Wisconsin and La Crosse rivers, now have stricter warnings and do not eat advice for certain species.
Officials say fish remain a healthy food, but contaminants such as mercury, PCBs, and PFOs can build up over time.
Green Bay City officials are warning residents about a phishing scam targeting people after submitting certain permits or applications.
Emails may come from unofficial domains such as USA.com and will demand payment via wire transfer.
Some emails have also threatened delays if fees weren't taken care of immediately.
The city says residents can verify the request directly by contacting the Community and Economic Development Department.
And that's your state news update.
I'm Connie Feldman.
for Civic Media
News.
At least four fights broke out.
Packers tight end, Tucker Kraft.
You know, I thought we got a lot of good work in, you know, you can always expect some chippiness.
But as far as all the joint practice, I've been a part of this.
This wasn't that bad.
The two teams play in their final preseason game tomorrow night, kickoff seven o'clock baseball.
The Brewers and Mets tonight, wrapping up their series.
Brewers pitcher Dustin May knocked out after his first pitch on a comeback hit, thwacking him in the back at 106 miles per hour.
Enter Robert Gasser, who
pitched the next
six innings.
The Brewers won eight to one.
He was great.
He really was.
I mean, that's not an easy assignment and he knew he was available tonight and gave us parts of six, made big pitches at big times, jockey him through that.
That's the Brewers manager, Pat Murphy.
With sports, I'm Mike Clemens.
It is going to be a really nice day today with plenty of sunshine and high in the upper 70s here this afternoon.
Tonight mostly clear.
We're going to drop into the upper 50s to near 60 for a low and then tomorrow
Another sunny, pleasant day with a high of 78.
I'm meteorologist Sean Cable.
Local news, local sports, and local people you know.
Your hometown station, 93.1 and AM 1600 The Wave.
I guess in the studio at this time is Ashton Zien who is the Parks and Recreation Director for the City of Ripping.
Thank you for joining us.
Thanks for having me.
Now we've got a new event coming up in Rippon this weekend called Cops and Bobbers.
What exactly is Cops and Bobbers?
Yeah, so
So it's a really fun event called, as you said, cops and bobbers.
And we're super excited about it.
It's a partnership between the Rippin Parks and Rec Department and the Rippin Police Department.
And it's just an opportunity for kids to get outside and do some fishing and spend some time with local officers.
The event is open from ages five to 13.
And the focus is really on introducing kids to fishing and giving them a fun
experience at the park.
Kids will get to fish alongside police officers.
We'll also have some fun awards throughout the event, including longest fish, shortest fish, and the top angler for the child who catches the most fish.
Yeah, it'll be fun.
We're excited to have it for our first year.
So this is going to be a cell first park?
Cell fridge,
yes.
And do you have to register for it?
Yes.
Yeah.
So, um, so yeah, Selfridge this Saturday, August 29th, um, uh, check in, I'll say this first check in is from 945 to 1030, um, in the pavilion and we'll get, um,
And it runs until 12 30 so 10 30 to 12 30 is the event And we'll be doing this right after the Selfridge Park grand opening That's from 9 to 10 30 So it's gonna be pretty busy in the park that morning at the a little
info on the grand opening.
It's just a couple of family friendly games, a scavenger hunt around the park just to get people out in the park that morning, which then leads into cops and bobbers.
But registration wise, yes, registration is on
our website which is ripin.rectus.com and again for five to 13 year olds and we definitely do suggest having a parent there if you have younger kids if they're older like 13 12 13 not as needed I guess but just for the year because we definitely suggest
parents do stay and participate with the police officers as well.
Each registered child will get a little fishing kit and will have bait and volunteers available to help throughout the event for the kids.
The kids also get a hot dog lunch.
Every registered child gets a hot dog lunch and there will be some fun prizes and then awards like I mentioned as well too.
Do you need a fishing license?
Um, if you're over 16 and you are fishing, you need a fishing license.
So if parents are coming, um, we suggest that, uh, you allow your child to do as much as possible.
Um, if you don't have your fishing license, um, uh, if your child is under 16, um, just you can help out, but, um, have your child do as much as they possibly can.
Okay.
So the event is on Saturday.
Today is Thursday.
Well, folks have time to register for it today.
and Friday.
Yes, yeah it is open until the morning of the event so and you can register day of.
We maxed it at 100 participants so we still have room for registration and for people to sign up day of.
So we'll have some individuals and volunteers there helping out with that if you didn't register in advance so.
Okay and
Where do you register online?
Yeah, so it's ripping dot rec desk calm.
So it's our rec software Registration is easy.
Just create an account and then you sign up for cops and bobbers.
Okay Related to the park.
Mm-hmm now There are a number of improvements mm-hmm which included shoreline restoration mm-hmm what a kayak launch
Yes, the kayak launch and fishing pier, they're not in yet.
We are hoping they would be in for the event, but it was pushed back due to manufacturer and supplier issues.
So they will not be in for the grand opening, unfortunately, or cops and bobbers, that was our hopes.
But the rest of the park is ready to go and we're just excited to have people out there to experience all of the new that's at Selfridge.
All right, so the fishing pier is at ADA accessible and then the candy camp accessible.
Yep.
Okay.
That was one of the big things.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The playground, the path, the bench pad or next to our benches, we poured pads that are ADA accessible.
So we tried to make it as ADA accessible across the park as possible.
And you improved the parking lot.
Yes.
The parking lot is
vastly better than it was
before.
Okay.
Anything else that you wanted folks to know about cops and bobbers,
Ashley?
We're just looking forward to it.
It's just going to be a great morning out there at Selfridge and we'd love to see families come out, meet some of our officers, enjoy the park and hopefully catch a fish.
Great.
Best of luck to all those.
Fisherman.
Yes.
Fisher women, I guess.
Boys and girls, I should
say.
All right.
Thank you, Ashton.
We've been talking with Ashton Zien, who's the Parks and Recreation Director for the City of Rippon.
Joining us at this time we have dr. Nathan Smith a board certified cardiothoracic surgeon with SSM health Dale Michaels heart and vascular care Dr. Smith.
Thank you for joining us this morning
Thank you so much for having me Bob.
It's a privilege
now.
I have to ask you're pretty much new to the area Tell us a little bit about that if you would please
Yeah, you know I was in a practice in Mississippi and quite content wasn't really looking for a job but a mentor from my general surgery days a Long time ago called me up and and said hey, would you like to be a little busier and come on up here to Fond du Lac, Wisconsin?
So after taking a gander at the at the local area and kind of falling in love with the town and the people my wife and I decided to move up here and it's been a real blessing
So how long have you been working now for them?
Are you just starting or?
Sure sure did started in July.
Oh, okay.
All right Well, very good and tell us a little bit about your background if you would where did you study?
Yeah, so I am I grew up in Winston Salem, North Carolina and had the privilege of a mentor there Dr. Neil Kahn who was a cardiac surgeon at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and
And when I was a youngster in high school, I had the opportunity to observe a couple cardiothoracic cases that he was doing.
And I just absolutely fell in love with the specialty.
It's my first exposure to surgery or medicine.
And, you know, just kind of, that was the seed and academic opportunity opened itself up to me.
And I just kind of walked through the paces through college and medical school and then down the long decade of
of hanging out in the bowels of the hospital for about 15 years.
And finally came out on the other end, known how to do general surgery, trauma critical care, and then cardiothoracic as well.
Now I see that you've done some medical mission trips.
Where have those trips taken you?
Yeah, so my wife grew up with a fella that is now the head surgeon and sort of chief executive of a mission hospital in Togo.
His name is Tom Kendall and I had actually gone to that same hospital prior to him being there when I was a medical student as a tropical disease rotation.
And so we already had some personal connections there.
And when I finally finished training and was able to get out and practice on my own, my wife and I have desired to do medical mission work for a long time.
And so finally made good on that.
So Togo was our first foray into that.
And it's a smaller hospital where I do general surgery stuff, like taking out colons or breast cancers or thyroids or hernias.
And my wife, who's also a physician,
She ends up taking care of the pediatric ICU and the neonatal ICU.
She's she's double bordered in internal medicine and pediatrics.
And so between the two of us, we can kind of run the hospital for the team while they get to take a break.
So what does your wife do then?
She's going to be working here at the moment.
She's getting settled into the home that the Lord provided for us and as well as homeschooling our kids.
But she's going to be working part time here in Fond du Lac as an outpatient adult medicine doc.
as well as a pediatrician occasionally on call here at the hospital.
Okay.
Well, we wanted to dip our toe a little bit into your background since you're just joining the Dale Michael's Heart and Vascular Care Center.
And now we can focus a little bit on the purpose of the interview.
And we wanted to talk today a little bit about
Heart attack symptoms, which I understand are pretty common, but more so in women.
Maybe you can tell us about that if you would
Yeah, well, that's a great topic to talk about Bob because it's it's something that Everybody's always conscious of we live in a well supplied environment with lots of good food and some of that food tends to lead to some heart disease So no surprise
men and women are wired up differently.
A lot of the early research in heart attacks was done in the 50s, 60s, and 70s.
And that classic image of a middle to older age gentleman with his hand over his left chest bending over with pain running down the left arm, that's what we think of as sort of the classic heart attack.
And that is true.
Roughly 90% of men will complain of some kind of chest discomfort that often runs down the left arm or up into the left jaw Turns out ladies like I said are just wired differently.
They do not necessarily experience heart attack discomfort in that same manner about 85% will still complain of some kind of chest discomfort, but often it will They'll call it something like
Just discomfort.
I'm hurting.
Excessive fatigue.
Sometimes people will misinterpret the heart attack pain as sort of a heartburn or something like that.
And oftentimes it'll go down the right side or up the back or even had one middle-aged lady that complained of a funny feeling at the back of her head.
So there's lots of what we would call atypical chest pain patterns, and it's really not atypical.
It's just this is that's how a ladies often experience their heart attack pain.
Okay.
So what kind of symptoms should you look for?
You kind of mentioned what most men go through and what the women, but is there any that's common between men and women?
Yeah, so the number one thing would be chest discomfort of some kind It may be burning.
It may be pressure.
It may be pain but something in the in the you know mid left-sided portion of the chest That that is the most common symptom and in folks that are having heart attacks Men and women they will describe chest pain 90% of the time
It's just the characterization of what that pain is like can be different between men and women
What happens if it goes untreated
Well, there's you know, there's heart attacks and heart attacks If you think of the kind of heart attack where someone kind of falls out and 911 is called and somebody comes in we're doing chest compressions and trying to get the patient to the hospital That would be something where a blood vessel to the heart
becomes completely blocked.
So that would be I think probably the classic hardest tack of what we would call a STEMI, an ST elevation myocardial infarction.
That's a fancy term.
It just means that there's EKG changes that are very recognizable.
But there's also harder tacks that are on the softer side where there is not a complete blockage, but just a tightness.
It's almost like having a fuel line problem in your car where long as you're resting and idle, everything's fine.
But if you try to press the gas, your engine's going to sputter a little bit.
And we would call that an end-stemmy or unstable angina.
Again,
technical terms related to the EKG changes.
But those kind of heart attacks are somewhat predictable.
A patient would have chest discomfort while they're exercising or doing some kind of vigorous work and then receive relief with rest.
So obviously with a classic heart attack, chest compression is a 911, it's all hands on deck, get the patient to the hospital and try to salvage.
But if a patient starts feeling that chest discomfort with work, that's an opportunity where we can intervene before there's a major event.
And so that would be something where the patient would need to come to a cardiologist or to their primary care provider.
and get worked up for it.
We've got some great opportunities to do stress tests and EKGs and imaging studies to be able to evaluate a patient's heart to see if they're at risk for having a heart attack.
Has heart surgery evolved over the years?
Oh, sure.
One of my favorite movies is Something the Lord Made that was about a fellow named Vivian Thomas.
who was an African American assistant to a guy named Blalock, Alfred Blalock, who was a Vanderbilt initially and then up at Johns Hopkins.
And they're credited with doing the first blue baby surgeries where they would attach an arm artery to the pulmonary artery to fix some congenital cardiac defects.
But it was off to the races from there.
People started doing aorta replacements for enlarged aortas.
They started doing valve replacements once the heart
and lung machines got up to par and were really honed and turned out to be quite safe.
In the 70s and 80s, people would use veins in the leg to do bypasses.
In the
90s and 2000s, early 2000s, we started using more arteries that turned out that lasted a lot longer.
And then from there, the last 20 years or so have been ongoing small incremental improvements
in the type of valves that we use, in surgical techniques.
One of the things that I've brought to the hospital here is something called multimodal pain therapy, where we take four or five low dose medications that tackle a patient's pain from both their perception as well as multiple routes along the pain pathways to minimize discomfort.
And so patients feel a lot better after having surgery.
There's also nuances and
how we close the patient back up.
Used to use wires.
Now we use these little Kevlar-like tapes that are much better, much more secure.
And there's all sorts of minimally invasive techniques that we can use.
I'm also a robotic thoracic surgeon, and so we treat things on the lung side of the world with minimally invasive robotic surgery.
Small incisions, patients go home the next day rather than a week-long hospital stay like it used to be.
But that's getting us just a little bit off topic.
Actually, we have to wrap things up.
But if people want more information or maybe they're interested in a medical visit with your office, how do they get a hold of you?
Yeah, the easiest way would be to just call my office at 920-926-8230.
And I'm happy to see folks.
Well, Dr. Smith, thank you so much for joining us this morning.
Well, thank you, Bob.
It's been a good delight.
We've been talking with Dr. Nathan Smith, a board certified cardiothoracica surgeon with SSM Health, Dale Michaels Heart and Vascular Care.
Joining us at this time we have dr. Nathan Smith a board certified cardiothoracic surgeon with SSM health Dale Michaels heart and vascular care Dr. Smith.
Thank you for joining us this morning
Thank you so much for having me Bob.
It's a privilege
now.
I have to ask you're pretty much new to the area Tell us a little bit about that if you would please
Yeah, you know I was in a practice in Mississippi and quite content wasn't really looking for a job but a mentor from my general surgery days a Long time ago called me up and and said hey, would you like to be a little busier and come on up here to Fond du Lac, Wisconsin?
So after taking a gander at the at the local area and kind of falling in love with the town and the people my wife and I decided to move up here and it's been a real blessing
So how long have you been working now for them?
Are you just starting or?
Sure sure did started in July.
Oh, okay.
All right Well, very good and tell us a little bit about your background if you would where did you study?
Yeah, so I am I grew up in Winston Salem, North Carolina and had the privilege of a mentor there Dr. Neil Kahn who was a cardiac surgeon at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center and
And when I was a youngster in high school, I had the opportunity to observe a couple cardiothoracic cases that he was doing.
And I just absolutely fell in love with the specialty.
It's my first exposure to surgery or medicine.
And, you know, just kind of, that was the seed and academic opportunity opened itself up to me.
And I just kind of walked through the paces through college and medical school and then down the long decade of
of hanging out in the bowels of the hospital for about 15 years.
And finally came out on the other end, known how to do general surgery, trauma critical care, and then cardiothoracic as well.
Now I see that you've done some medical mission trips.
Where have those trips taken you?
Yeah, so my wife grew up with a fella that is now the head surgeon and sort of chief executive of a mission hospital in Togo.
His name is Tom Kendall and I had actually gone to that same hospital prior to him being there when I was a medical student as a tropical disease rotation.
And so we already had some personal connections there.
And when I finally finished training and was able to get out and practice on my own, my wife and I have desired to do medical mission work for a long time.
And so finally made good on that.
So Togo was our first foray into that.
And it's a smaller hospital where I do general surgery stuff, like taking out colons or breast cancers or thyroids or hernias.
And my wife, who's also a physician,
She ends up taking care of the pediatric ICU and the neonatal ICU.
She's she's double bordered in internal medicine and pediatrics.
And so between the two of us, we can kind of run the hospital for the team while they get to take a break.
So what does your wife do then?
She's going to be working here at the moment.
She's getting settled into the home that the Lord provided for us and as well as homeschooling our kids.
But she's going to be working part time here in Fond du Lac as an outpatient adult medicine doc.
as well as a pediatrician occasionally on call here at the hospital.
Okay.
Well, we wanted to dip our toe a little bit into your background since you're just joining the Dale Michael's Heart and Vascular Care Center.
And now we can focus a little bit on the purpose of the interview.
And we wanted to talk today a little bit about
Heart attack symptoms, which I understand are pretty common, but more so in women.
Maybe you can tell us about that if you would
Yeah, well, that's a great topic to talk about Bob because it's it's something that Everybody's always conscious of we live in a well supplied environment with lots of good food and some of that food tends to lead to some heart disease So no surprise
men and women are wired up differently.
A lot of the early research in heart attacks was done in the 50s, 60s, and 70s.
And that classic image of a middle to older age gentleman with his hand over his left chest bending over with pain running down the left arm, that's what we think of as sort of the classic heart attack.
And that is true.
Roughly 90% of men will complain of some kind of chest discomfort that often runs down the left arm or up into the left jaw Turns out ladies like I said are just wired differently.
They do not necessarily experience heart attack discomfort in that same manner about 85% will still complain of some kind of chest discomfort, but often it will They'll call it something like
Just discomfort.
I'm hurting.
Excessive fatigue.
Sometimes people will misinterpret the heart attack pain as sort of a heartburn or something like that.
And oftentimes it'll go down the right side or up the back or even had one middle-aged lady that complained of a funny feeling at the back of her head.
So there's lots of what we would call atypical chest pain patterns, and it's really not atypical.
It's just this is that's how a ladies often experience their heart attack pain.
Okay.
So what kind of symptoms should you look for?
You kind of mentioned what most men go through and what the women, but is there any that's common between men and women?
Yeah, so the number one thing would be chest discomfort of some kind It may be burning.
It may be pressure.
It may be pain but something in the in the you know mid left-sided portion of the chest That that is the most common symptom and in folks that are having heart attacks Men and women they will describe chest pain 90% of the time
It's just the characterization of what that pain is like can be different between men and women
What happens if it goes untreated
Well, there's you know, there's heart attacks and heart attacks If you think of the kind of heart attack where someone kind of falls out and 911 is called and somebody comes in we're doing chest compressions and trying to get the patient to the hospital That would be something where a blood vessel to the heart
becomes completely blocked.
So that would be I think probably the classic hardest tack of what we would call a STEMI, an ST elevation myocardial infarction.
That's a fancy term.
It just means that there's EKG changes that are very recognizable.
But there's also harder tacks that are on the softer side where there is not a complete blockage, but just a tightness.
It's almost like having a fuel line problem in your car where long as you're resting and idle, everything's fine.
But if you try to press the gas, your engine's going to sputter a little bit.
And we would call that an end-stemmy or unstable angina.
Again,
technical terms related to the EKG changes.
But those kind of heart attacks are somewhat predictable.
A patient would have chest discomfort while they're exercising or doing some kind of vigorous work and then receive relief with rest.
So obviously with a classic heart attack, chest compression is a 911, it's all hands on deck, get the patient to the hospital and try to salvage.
But if a patient starts feeling that chest discomfort with work, that's an opportunity where we can intervene before there's a major event.
And so that would be something where the patient would need to come to a cardiologist or to their primary care provider.
and get worked up for it.
We've got some great opportunities to do stress tests and EKGs and imaging studies to be able to evaluate a patient's heart to see if they're at risk for having a heart attack.
Has heart surgery evolved over the years?
Oh, sure.
One of my favorite movies is Something the Lord Made that was about a fellow named Vivian Thomas.
who was an African American assistant to a guy named Blalock, Alfred Blalock, who was a Vanderbilt initially and then up at Johns Hopkins.
And they're credited with doing the first blue baby surgeries where they would attach an arm artery to the pulmonary artery to fix some congenital cardiac defects.
But it was off to the races from there.
People started doing aorta replacements for enlarged aortas.
They started doing valve replacements once the heart
and lung machines got up to par and were really honed and turned out to be quite safe.
In the 70s and 80s, people would use veins in the leg to do bypasses.
In the
90s and 2000s, early 2000s, we started using more arteries that turned out that lasted a lot longer.
And then from there, the last 20 years or so have been ongoing small incremental improvements
in the type of valves that we use, in surgical techniques.
One of the things that I've brought to the hospital here is something called multimodal pain therapy, where we take four or five low dose medications that tackle a patient's pain from both their perception as well as multiple routes along the pain pathways to minimize discomfort.
And so patients feel a lot better after having surgery.
There's also nuances and
how we close the patient back up.
Used to use wires.
Now we use these little Kevlar-like tapes that are much better, much more secure.
And there's all sorts of minimally invasive techniques that we can use.
I'm also a robotic thoracic surgeon, and so we treat things on the lung side of the world with minimally invasive robotic surgery.
Small incisions, patients go home the next day rather than a week-long hospital stay like it used to be.
But that's getting us just a little bit off topic.
Actually, we have to wrap things up.
But if people want more information or maybe they're interested in a medical visit with your office, how do they get a hold of you?
Yeah, the easiest way would be to just call my office at 920-926-8230.
And I'm happy to see folks.
Well, Dr. Smith, thank you so much for joining us this morning.
Well, thank you, Bob.
It's been a good delight.
We've been talking with Dr. Nathan Smith, a board certified cardiothoracica surgeon with SSM Health, Dale Michaels Heart and Vascular Care.