Clarification: in the development of this text, the terms "cardiology" and "cardiologist" also comprise cardiac surgery and the cardiovascular surgeon.
I. Bedside reading bookHighlight: "The study of Medicine begins with the patient, continues with the patient, and ends with the patient..." (William Bart Osler -1849-1919.Highly pedagogical medical books -the patient collection -are edited by the bedside; title pages are precisely the faces of patients. There are chapters so revealing of the human being that the text seems to be written in the patient-author's own handwriting; some of them become bedside books in light of the empathy involved in the doctor-patient relationship.With due permission, we reproduce an extract of a book about prosthesis-dependency that started to be written more than thirty years ago by a person with aortic valvopathy. Currently, he is living with his fourth prosthesis and says that quality of life "between operations" has always been excellent: A recent research noted that, for the aortic position, the bioprosthesis was considered superior to the mechanical prosthesis (80% versus 70%) as to the endpoint of degree of satisfaction with prosthesis-dependency. Data included the patient's desire to maintain the same type of valvar prosthesis in an eventual reoperation 3