Heart Patient Stories

Patient stories about heart health

December 21, 2021

Little Rock Santa Gets Tune-Up from UAMS Heart Surgeons

Linda Satter

Roger Armstrong with his beard braided

Even Santa Claus needs a tune-up every now and then. That’s what Roger Armstrong of Little Rock, who has been playing Santa since 1968, discovered early this Christmas season. Normally, by the first week of November, he is posing for Christmas card pictures. Then he makes the rounds at the usual places — events for…


November 3, 2021

Retired Educator Living Life to Fullest after Innovative Heart Surgery

Linda Satter

Rosie Coleman has a new lease on life thanks to UAMS cardiac surgeon Jay K. Bhama, M.D., whose quick thinking saved her when she experienced a rare complication during a high-risk quadruple-bypass surgery.

This has been a very busy year for Rosie Coleman of Sherwood.

But if it wasn’t for the foresight and quick-thinking actions of Jay K. Bhama, M.D., a cardiac surgeon at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, she likely wouldn’t have lived to see 2021.


February 26, 2021

Marathoner Thanks Heart Team at UAMS

Katrina Dupins

Jon Norcross

Sixty days after a sudden cardiac arrest, Jon Norcross of Little Rock finished a half marathon. It was an exceptional journey to recovery, and he took a moment in January to extend his gratitude on social media for everyone who kept him alive, including a team of cardiovascular experts at UAMS Health.


March 17, 2020

Student Doesn’t Miss a Beat with New Leadless Pacemaker

Katrina Dupins

Clevenger

Last year at this time, Catherine (Kathi) Clevenger was running an average of six miles every day and would spend her free time studying at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. But around August, she noticed something was off. She would occasionally experience shortness of breath, heart palpitations and fainting. “Sometimes I would wake…


February 3, 2017

Mena Woman with AFib Back to Enjoying Life

Katrina Dupins

Glenna Love UAMS

Feb. 3, 2017 | Glenna Love enjoyed spending time in her garden, writing as a member of the writers’ guild and traveling the world. “We’ve had a great life,” said the 74-year-old from Mena. Love and her husband of 34 years, Robert Tomlinson, enjoy the memories they have of traveling across the sea to countries…


May 9, 2016

Star City Man First at UAMS to Receive Z-Fen Graft

Benjamin Waldrum

May 9, 2016 | Glenn Harvey didn’t know he had an aortic aneurysm. Thanks to a new procedure, performed for the first time at UAMS in March, he still can’t feel a thing. Mohammed Moursi, M.D., chief of vascular surgery and program director of the vascular surgery residency program at UAMS, performed the procedure on…


August 3, 2015

Monticello Woman’s Irregular Heartbeat Cured at UAMS

Kelly Gardner

For most of us, the electrical impulses that keep our heartbeat steady are rarely given much thought. But when the circuitry goes haywire, as it did for Glenda Kay Newton Wood of Monticello, finding the right physician is critical. After nearly four years and two heart bypass surgeries, the situation was dire when Wood found…


Cardiovascular: Heart Smart

Kelly Gardner

When Essie Ashford arrived at UAMS one morning in January, her left main coronary artery was so critically narrowed that she immediately needed a stent procedure just to survive long enough to make it into surgery. A dedicated trauma elevator in the Emergency Department rushed the 65-year-old widow from Little Rock up to the state-of-the-art…


Telemedicine Key to Physician’s Stroke Recovery

Kelly Gardner

Telemedicine Key to Physician’s Stroke Recovery Robert Scott, M.D., on Dec. 9 lost almost all control he had over the right side of his body. He was having a stroke. Less than three hours later, he had regained all its function with help from University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) neurologist Sami Harik, M.D.,…


July 9, 2015

‘Pathway’ Helps Crossett Man Survive Ruptured Aorta

Kelly Gardner

When Frank Englerth’s aorta began to rupture, the stabbing pain high in his back woke him in the middle of a cold February night. It was the beginning of what could have been the end for Englerth, 74, who lives on the Saline River deep in southeastern Arkansas, nearly a three-hour drive from Little Rock….



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