Heart

Question

I recently had a complete physical and my physician said he could hear an innocent heart murmur.  He said lots of people have them and there is nothing to worry about. The nurse came in to draw blood after he left and she asked if I was a smoker because my blood was so dark.  I have never been.  She said it usually indicates low blood oxygen.  Do I have reason to be concerned?  I am a healthy 48 year old women, 5'5" and 140 lbs.

jimmyb · Answer

I am continually shocked at what some health care professionals will say about things which they have no knowledge. I went in for an echo once while I was having a bout with PVC's. The person doing the echo said since I was having several in a row it could be very dangerous. That freaked me out and I went into a tachycardia episode. The doctor came in and said the PVC's were nothing. My wife has also had some very uncalled for comments directed her way in doctor's offices. I hope any health care practitioners who read this will keep that in mind...insensitive comments are going to be made, but try not to do it in front of the patient!

Kristin391 · Answer

Generally, it is a venipuncture tech that draws blood....not a nurse.  I am fairly confident that a professional nurse wouldn't render such a conclusion.  It is always interesting to me that people generally believe that all females working in health care are nurses.  That simply is not true.  There are so many different types of technicians doing all kinds of things that may or may not have any kind of educational background.  They may only have a few weeks of training versus the four years of college for professional nurses.

Erik36 · Answer

The comment the person drawing your blood made was an idiotic comment and you should not pay any attention to it. Last I knew nurses don't have the ability to look at blood and predicit that there is low oxygen in it. Heck, I don't think a doctor can do that.


Erik

CCF-M.D.-BKJ · Answer

rson,

There are multiple reasons for murmmers. Generally they are caused by turbulence of blood flowing through the heart -- most commonly from the valves.  Without hearing the murmmer I cannot comment. An echocardiogram would help rule out any significant structural problems causing the murmmer.

good luck

Heart

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