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Med Student Saves a Life: His Own

It’s not uncommon for medical students to think they have some of the very diseases they’re studying, but for one recent graduate of UVA’s med school, a classroom exercise led to life-saving surgery. 

In his fourth year of medical school,  Cullen Timmons took a course on physical diagnosis in which students took turns using their stethoscope.  He also listened to his own heart and quickly turned to his professor for a second opinion. 

"We were just going around listening to people and trying to fine-tune our ears to picking up really soft murmurs. And I said, 'you know I think I've had a murmur before, you should listen to me and see what’s going on,' and we did, and he was concerned right off the bat – a lot more than I was."

The professor ordered an echo-cardiogram – a hospital test that uses sound waves to produce images of the heart.  It showed Timmons had aortal regurgitation.

"Basically, when the blood was coming out of the left side of my heart and going in the aorta, some portion of it was coming back into the heart, and it’s not really supposed to do that and the echo showed it was actually part of an aneurism."

Timmons was about to begin a round of interviews for residency programs and hoped to put off treatment, but his doctor scheduled open heart surgery  to repair the aorta the following week.

"The likelihood was that I maybe had a few weeks to a few months before it would have burst."

Fortunately, Timmons recovered quickly and was able to reschedule his interviews.  What’s more, he had something interesting to discuss with prospective employers.

"It’s really scary having a disease that you can't treat yourself and you have to rely on other people for, and I had never experienced that before."

As a result, he thinks he’ll be a better doctor – someone who really understands patients who visit the emergency room at Vanderbilt University where he’ll begin work next month. 

Sandy Hausman is Radio IQ's Charlottesville Bureau Chief
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