一个世纪后,心理学家继承了以心为中心的家族遗产
心脏心理学家凯蒂·西尔斯·爱德华兹(Katie Sears Edwards)的职业生涯有时也会出现家族巨头的足迹.
尽管她从未认识过这位心脏病学界的传奇人物保罗·达德利·怀特,但她还是感受到这位远房亲戚的影响.
怀特于1973年去世,一个世纪前,他帮助创立了美国心脏协会. Among many accomplishments, 他提倡生活方式影响冠状动脉疾病的观点,被认为是预防心脏病学的创始人. 人们还记得他对他所照顾的病人的同情和支持.
"He really made a point of being very kind to patients, treating everyone very humanly, which is definitely something that's stuck with me," said Edwards, an AHA volunteer and member of the Bay Area board of directors. “我在心脏心理学方面的全部工作都是关于治疗整个人, not just their heart condition."
White was President Dwight D. Eisenhower's cardiologist following his heart attack in 1955, and played a key role in his recovery, allowing Eisenhower to run successfully for a second term. 怀特发表了700多篇科学文章和12本书,包括1931年的经典教科书 Heart Disease. 他还广泛研究了一种涉及心脏电系统的疾病, now known as Wolf-Parkinson-White syndrome.
但多年来,怀特对爱德华兹来说是一个有点神秘的人物,爱德华兹是在他死后出生的. Through her mother, she learned her maternal great-grandfather, gastroenterologist Franklin Warren White, was first cousins with Paul Dudley White's father (Dr. 赫伯特·沃伦·怀特),并在波士顿的马萨诸塞州总医院指导他.
有一个家庭故事给她留下了深刻的印象,那就是她的妈妈描述了怀特对鲸鱼心跳的迷恋.
"As a child, I envisioned him out there in the water with a stethoscope, listening to the whale's heartbeat," she said with a laugh. "He was interested in the electrophysiology of many different animals."
She also heard stories of White's devotion to exercise. 他是一名狂热的步行者和自行车爱好者,推动了一项通过体育活动改善心脏健康的全国性计划, 怀特在波士顿查尔斯河沿岸的保罗·达德利·怀特自行车道中被纪念.
“我姑姑告诉我,当他来参加她的婚礼时,他拒绝开车去接待厅. He walked there in 20 minutes while everybody else drove," she said.
"My mother's family, the White family, is really active, 所以保持身体健康对我来说也很重要," said Edwards, 她在高中和大学都很擅长划船,还是斯坦福女子赛艇队的队长.
The death of her maternal grandmother, Suzanne White, 启发她成为一名临终关怀志愿者,然后学习健康心理学. Today, 她是斯坦福大学医学临床助理教授,也是美国为数不多的认知行为治疗师之一.S. who specialize in cardiology.
她的目标是将已知的心理学知识应用于那些在心脏病诊断或突发心脏病后正在适应重大变化的人.
她说:“通常,他们有很多焦虑,专注于最坏的情况。. “我试图帮助他们了解我们现在在心脏病学方面拥有的许多资源,并帮助他们以更乐观的心态应对心脏病."
The power of positive thinking turns out to be a family trait, as Edwards found out when she read the 1986 biography Take Heart: The Life and Prescription for Living of Paul Dudley White.
What stood out to her was "his great optimistic manner, which I'm sure helped his patients," she said. "As I got my Ph.D. in psychology, and as I've worked with patients, 我了解到乐观是如何成为病人康复和心脏预后的重要因素."
爱德华兹还使用基于证据的策略来帮助人们改善与饮食有关的健康行为, exercise, stress management and sleep.
As an AHA volunteer, 她希望教育卫生保健专业人员关于高质量精神卫生保健对心脏病患者的重要性.
"It's such a cool feeling that Paul Dudley White helped start the AHA, and now I'm a part of it, 100 years later," she said. "I wish I could have met him, but I feel like there's a continuity, 我们都是这个长期为人们做很多好事的组织的一部分."