In past Olympic Games, what kinds of medical problems have been encountered?
The athletes are pretty healthy. The problems are usually more with the entourage that comes with the athletes. There will be a lot of older people, and they come with a variety of diseases. They can have GI bleeding, acute MIs and they come with pacemakers. In Olympic history—I’ve enjoyed reading a lot of the history of the Games—there have been only two deaths in the Summer Games. In 1912, in Stockholm, a runner from Portugal got heat stroke in the marathon and died the next day. And then in 1960, a cyclist died, and it was probably related to amphetamines. Those are two examples of things we will have to deal with here—the heat situation and making sure people aren’t taking stimulants. Are there some lessons from the Olympians for your internal medicine and cardiology patients? I think the main thing is that you just try to encourage people to be the best that they can be. That’s what the Olympians try to be. That’s what we try to impart to the cardiac rehab patients. Don’t try to k
