The Doctors at Woodholme Cardiovascular Associates care dearly about the cardiovascular health of all of our patients. We have been asked by many of our patients whether they should get either of the two COVID vaccines.
The simple answer is a resounding “Yes” with the understanding that we cannot advise people who are pregnant, children, those with a severe allergic reaction to a vaccine or those with immune system compromise (i.e. on chemotherapy). Please talk to your other doctors if you are not sure about your personal health issues.
The facts are:
1. The pandemic and this illness are out of control and the most important way to control it is to get a vaccine, in addition to continuing wearing our masks and social distancing.
2. COVID is a serious and potentially fatal illness not only for us, but for everyone we may give it to.
3. The Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are essentially identical and are not live virus vaccines; meaning you are not getting a weakened form of the virus, and most importantly you cannot get the virus from the vaccine.
4. Cardiac patients, especially older cardiac patients are at especially high risk for serious illness should they catch COVID, so having a heart condition increases the need to get vaccinated.
We are aware that the rollout of the state vaccination program is slow and suggest that getting scheduled for inoculation has not been easy. Woodholme does not have access to the vaccine. Please use the following link https://covidlink.
Once again, if you have any specific questions pertaining to your personal medical condition, please contact your doctor.
Together we can do our part to end this pandemic and preserve the health of our patients and community.
Andrew Barnstein, MD
Benjamin DuBois, MD
Charles Cummings, MD
Martin Engelhardt, MD, PhD
Ambereen Quraishi, MD
Jonathan Rogers, MD
Paresh Shah, MD
