Leocádia and her journey through hell

Narrative depicting the clinical care journey experienced by a doctor and her patient—a young woman with symptomatic ventricular tachycardia, with no structural heart disease, with no response to conventional treatment—at the Arrhythmia Outpatient Clinic. The non-conventional expanded medical approach—where the patient’s psychoemotional profile is taken into consideration—was adopted. Through a cartographic method, we aim to trace the paths taken, highlighting feelings, deadlocks, achievements, and stoppage moments as lines of intensity marking several events. The patient reversed her arrhythmia and symptoms after three and a half years of treatment, and remains so after six and a half years. Therefore, we believe we can constructively cooperate with the discussions of several aspects of contemporary clinical relations, affective dimensions of becoming ill, and processes implied in the development of health.

Keywords : Cartography; Cardiology; Cardiac arrhythmia; Palpitations.

Access in: https://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_abstract&pid=S1414-32832021000100800&lng=pt&nrm=iso&tlng=en