Healing Women's Hearts

In 1986, after her mother unexpectedly died following open-heart surgery, Bonnie Arkus (who at the time was a registered nurse in Trenton, New Jersey) was told that there were no studies done specifically on women's reaction to cardiac surgery and that the survival rates were based on research done on men. This prompted Arkus to lobby various organizations for gender-separated studies on heart disease and heart disease treatment.

Arkus's efforts proved effective. In 1990, the National Institutes of Health created the Office of Research on Women's Health, and the American Heart Association announced that it was launching a women and heart disease initiative. The Women's Heart Foundation (WHF) was officially formed in 1991, with Arkus as its president and executive director. The focus of the WHF is advocacy. Funding has been a struggle for the organization and for Arkus personally. She quit her job as a nursing consultant three years ago to devote her time to the foundation and she receives no salary.

Arkus finds that many doctors still don't listen to women. When doing presentations to healthcare professionals and to the public she always begins with the same mantra: "Believe women." The phrase is always met by plenty of nodding in the audience.

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