BARCELONA -- While Houston cardiologist Christie Ballantyne, MD, was gearing up for his group's study headlining the world's largest cardiology meeting here, his colleagues were sleeping at the hospital and his family texting about evacuation from Tropical Storm Harvey.
Ballantyne isn't sure when he will be able to return home from the European Society of Cardiology conference, but what he wanted to talk about were the parallels between neighbors helping neighbors during the flood disaster and what he views as the essence of medicine -- caring for people in crisis.
"The flood made me think about what we do as a profession," he told 51˶ at the meeting in Barcelona, a city that has had its share of crisis recently but also of neighbors banding together in a show of unity. "It's a caring profession. We see in times in crisis it tends to bring out the best in people."