On 9 August I wrote about a trip I made to the hospital because of concerns I had about palpitations I had felt in my chest. During that visit, the doctor who treated me gave me a letter to give to my general practitioner, who after I had seen him for a consultation organised for me to have a Holter monitor put on for 24 hours. The people who do this work out of his clinic. You go in in the morning and they put a data logger around your neck and place contacts at different points on your upper torso which feed information to the unit. You can’t shower obviously when you’re wearing the thing and you keep it on during your time asleep.
They took it off the next morning and sent it away for analysis but the doctor’s receptionist called me a couple of weeks later to tell me the pathology company had mislaid the data logger and that the data it had contained had been lost. She apologised and told me she would organise for someone to call me back when another monitor was available to put on. In the meantime, I met my GP one day in the square where the cafes are and we had a chat about this occurrence. He apologised for the inconvenience.
The receptionist called me back not long after this and I went in one morning at 9am as usual to get a new device put on. The contacts that go on your torso are kept there by a kind of adhesive patch that has a backing surface that is removed and thrown away. The technician who did the work this time told me that the previous time the reading had not been successful, and wasn’t aware that they had told me that the data logger had been mislaid. I went away with the monitor attached and went about my business as usual, then the next morning early I went in to have it removed.
Later in the week, the GP phoned me to tell me that the results had shown that I have an ectopic beat and that it was not something to be concerned about. He said that if it got a lot worse I should go to see a cardiologist, but in general it was not serious and I should not worry about it. He was surprised when I told him that the staffer of pathology company staff had not realised that her company had mislaid the data logger the previous time. He said they work out of his clinic but that they are supervised independently so there was not much he could do about it apart from registering a complaint. I had a look online to research ectopic beats and it seems that it’s not uncommon for people to have this condition.
They took it off the next morning and sent it away for analysis but the doctor’s receptionist called me a couple of weeks later to tell me the pathology company had mislaid the data logger and that the data it had contained had been lost. She apologised and told me she would organise for someone to call me back when another monitor was available to put on. In the meantime, I met my GP one day in the square where the cafes are and we had a chat about this occurrence. He apologised for the inconvenience.
The receptionist called me back not long after this and I went in one morning at 9am as usual to get a new device put on. The contacts that go on your torso are kept there by a kind of adhesive patch that has a backing surface that is removed and thrown away. The technician who did the work this time told me that the previous time the reading had not been successful, and wasn’t aware that they had told me that the data logger had been mislaid. I went away with the monitor attached and went about my business as usual, then the next morning early I went in to have it removed.
Later in the week, the GP phoned me to tell me that the results had shown that I have an ectopic beat and that it was not something to be concerned about. He said that if it got a lot worse I should go to see a cardiologist, but in general it was not serious and I should not worry about it. He was surprised when I told him that the staffer of pathology company staff had not realised that her company had mislaid the data logger the previous time. He said they work out of his clinic but that they are supervised independently so there was not much he could do about it apart from registering a complaint. I had a look online to research ectopic beats and it seems that it’s not uncommon for people to have this condition.
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