NEW ORLEANS — February is Heart Awareness Month, and two local cardiologists have devoted their lives to strengthening their patients' hearts.
"Meant to be"
Dr. Glenn Polin and Dr. Nichole Polin work at Ochsner in the Cardio department. Their paths first crossed when they were in the same training hospital in the early 2000s.
The way the program works, their vacation time was assigned to them randomly, and it turned out Glenn and Nichole were both given the same time slot.
They both happened to be headed to Turks and Caicos Islands with the same time slot.
"I had booked a vacation to a destination by myself, and I had heard about a month later thru a mutual friend that Glenn had booked the same trip the same week on his own, so I reached out to him and said, you don't know me, but I'm going on this trip - would you like to share a ride to the airport? And that's kind of where it all began, really. And here we are, 21 years later," said Dr. Nichole Polin.
"Lasting love?"
After a fantastic trip, would it last?
We were still kind of young at the time, and it's always unclear whether you can take the love and romance from the Caribbean and transfer it to your everyday life," said Dr. Glenn Polin.
Nichole said Glenn called the day after they returned, and she felt pretty good.
"Another dose of fate"
Their Residency wasn't a problem, but when fellowships came for the doctors, Glenn matched at Cornell in New York, and Nichole had planned to stay in Philadelphia. With them possibly being separated, Nichole started to second guess her decision.
The night I had told Glenn I thought I should look about coming to New York, we got home, and there was actually a voicemail on our answering machine from a previous colleague of mine who was at Cornell. They were wondering if I was still interested in interventional cardiology because they had an opening there. So I called him and interviewed the next week and got the position at the same program as Glenn, so we both got to go to New York," said Nichole.
"Two hearts beat as one"
The rest is history. Their love of medicine and studying the heart brought their hearts together.
"We've spent a lot of our time together taking care of not only our hearts but other hearts as well, in fact, we spent our first anniversary trying to save a very, very sick young woman who came in very ill, and we were both working on her, and we looked up, and it was midnight, and we said oh happy first-anniversary babe," said Nichole.
"Fortunately, they haven't all been like that, but there's certainly a connection with love and the heart," said Glenn.
"Love is the best medicine"
The two cardiologists have different specialties but often share patients. There's an old saying: "love is the best medicine"... something the Polin's believe in.
"I think mental health is important and being able to distress, love, laugh and have a good time. I think it's very important. I actually spend quite a bit of time talking to my patients about how they're doing that and trying to help them find ways to manage stress and be happy," said Nichole.
"The love story continues"
Glenn and Nichole seem to have mastered love. They've been married for 17 years. They have two daughters, Chloe and Maddy.
The family loves to travel and explore national parks. Glenn jokes his kids are a captive audience while they are on hikes.
Nichole said the secret to love is to appreciate the person you're with. It's your spouse, your best friend, your love. You're building this life together and so make sure that they're appreciated and that they're loved."