Max Schewitz Foundation teams with doctors to offer ECG exams
With summer on the horizon, testing and exams are not words students and parents want to think about until August.
But this test requires no advance studying and is painless. An electrocardiogram, or ECG test, can detect students who may be at risk for sudden cardiac death, even if they do not show symptoms.
Max Schewitz was a seemingly healthy 20-year-old whose sudden death from a hidden heart problem led his parents to start a foundation in his memory.
The Max Schewitz Foundation provides schoolwide ECG testing to find students who might be at risk so they can get treatment and live normal life spans.
They have tested nearly 28,000 area high school students in 18 area schools and identified almost 500 with abnormal ECGs.
This summer, the foundation is kicking off a test program geared toward physicians. It aims to provide high school aged patients (13-19) with a free ECG during their routine physical exam at their doctor’s office.
Among others, the foundation will partner with two North suburban physicians to bring the free testing to students in the Ingleside and Round Lake areas. Dr. William Dam and Dr. Leonard Ginzburg will give a free ECG test to high school students examined in their practice for their annual exam, sports physical or the exam required for all students entering high school.
The noninvasive ECG test takes just minutes to complete and interpretations will be overseen by Dr. Eli Lavie, a cardiologist with NorthShore University HealthSystems and medical director of the Max Schewitz Foundation.
“Not only are these children thoroughly examined by a community-based physician committed to their child’s health, the ECGs are interpreted by a specialist who has the rare experience of interpreting thousands of young adult ECGs,” said Mary Beth Schewitz, Max’s mom and executive director of the Max Schewitz Foundation.
Ginzburg is a Clinical Assistant Professor in Family Medicine and a leader in implementation of American Heart Association guidelines for the prevention of cardiovascular disease in children and young adults. Dam is an internal medicine physician.
Schewitz stated the goal of the free pilot program is to test the feasibility of collecting the ECGs in a primary care setting, with interpretation provided by centralized specialists. Results from the pilot will inform the medical community of the feasibility of implementing this program on a larger scale.
New and existing patients of Dam and Ginzburg can schedule a free ECG test through Aug. 24 when scheduling their regular exam. Dam’s office is at 214 Washington St., in Ingleside; (847) 587-3004.
Ginzburg’s office is at 19 W. Rollins Road, Round Lake, (847) 740-7260.