At the Myocarditis Foundation, we are driven to help myocarditis patients all around the world. As a grossly underdiagnosed medical condition, one of our major tasks is to spread myocarditis education to members of the public, including healthcare providers. We also hope to inspire more researchers to explore myocarditis treatment methods, as well as encourage more physicians to familiarize themselves with this disease. Here’s a closer look at our myocarditis educational efforts and their goals.
Emergency Room Nurse Education Program
In 2018, we initiated a major push to educate healthcare providers about myocarditis. That’s when we began our Emergency Room Nurse Education Program in partnership with the Abbott Foundation, formerly known as the St. Jude Medical Foundation. As a part of this effort, we successfully improved nurses’ knowledge about myocarditis, which was also shown to positively impact the physicians they worked with.
As a part of this initiative, we administered myocarditis pre-tests to emergency rooms across 25 states. The results of these pre-tests demonstrated a clear need for myocarditis education programs for healthcare providers. Far from discouraging us, these findings continue to drive us further in our battle against myocarditis, inspiring us to increase our outreach and provide even more learning opportunities for those who need them most.
Nurses are one such group that needs this education. To illustrate, our efforts to raise awareness have a large role to play in decreasing the number of sudden deaths caused by myocarditis. As the third leading cause of sudden death in children and young adults, our educative programs are most important for the providers who work with these demographics, including triage nurses, pediatric nurse practitioners, physicians, and more.
Giving Informative Presentations
The Myocarditis Foundation regularly attends conferences, presenting helpful information to providers from all across the country. For example, at a recent Southeastern Seaboard Nurses Emergency Room Conference, we encouraged nurses and nurse practitioners to think outside the box when diagnosing myocarditis. Similarly, at last year’s Pediatric Nurse Practitioner Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana, we provided myocarditis insights for almost 2,000 nurse practitioners.
Educating the Public
On top of educating healthcare providers about myocarditis, we also take measures to inform the general public about this condition. By teaching people about the tell-tale symptoms of myocarditis, encouraging them to visit their providers when they aren’t feeling well, and providing them with resources to navigate cardiac diagnoses, we hope to see a future where myocarditis no longer claims innocent lives. Our public education includes:
- Informative webinars with built-in question and answer sessions
- My Myocarditis Story video series
- Sponsored conferences and lectures
- Inspire Online Myocarditis Community
- Myocarditis event advertisement
By participating in one or more of our educational efforts, members of the public can learn what it’s like to live with myocarditis. We hope this inspires them to action and also helps them become a supportive ally for the people in their lives who are affected by this disease.
Help Us Provide Myocarditis Education
For our educational efforts to continue, the Myocarditis Foundation relies on the generous donations of our partners, as well as people just like you. To help promote our educational efforts, contact us at 281-713-2962 or consider making a donation today.
