On YouTube, clinical psychologist counsels global community of heart warriors

The Heart Warrior Project may be the most popular YouTube channel for people living with implantable-cardioverter defibrillators (ICDs), and on an episode earlier this year, East Carolina University psychology professor and researcher Sam Sears told its host why he loves being a part of that success.

“Not everyone is going to have a psychologist or a psychiatrist or a social worker ready to treat them. This work I do has got to get disseminated broadly — that’s why I love the Heart Warrior Project,” he said.

ECU’s Dr. Sam Sears appeared earlier this year on an episode of the YouTube podcast program The Heart Warrior Project with host Jellis Vaes.

He then suggested tactics that apply broadly to patients who enjoy a successful and healthy recovery following an ICD shock. They include, first, validating all of ones emotions, then sharing the incident with family and friends, making an appointment to talk to one’s medical team, getting back into activity and “being self-compassionate” as life resumes.

“Somebody might hear this and be helped,” he told the host.

Sears is also chief of the Division of Innovation and Research in the Department of Cardiovascular Sciences at the Brody School of Medicine. He’s a clinical health psychologist with a global reputation for his research work exploring the burden and the behaviors of patients with ICDs.

An ICD is a device surgically placed beneath the skin of the chest with a lead that goes to the heart. It typically serves as a pacemaker and defribrillator, sending signals to the heart to correct arrhythmias, and a booming jolt in the event of cardiac arrest.

“ICD shocks shake people up. They’re out of the blue,” Sears told the audience. “It kicks off a series of questions. ‘Am I safe? Is my condition getting worse? … How do I prevent this from happening again? What’s going to happen in the future?’ At the drop of a hat, there are like seven important, dramatic questions.”

“Everything you just said is exactly what went through my head,” said the host.

The Heart Warrior Project is the creation of Jellis Vaes (pron. YELL-uhs vahs), a young, athletic Belgian living outside of Antwerp. He suffered cardiac arrest in his sleep at the age of 28. He is 33 now and living with an ICD.

In this particular episode, “Living in Fear of an ICD Shock? Here’s What You Need To Know,” the host and two members of the online Heart Warriors community shared their experiences being shocked back to sinus rhythm by their ICDs.

“Anxiety from a shock is a natural response to an aversive event,” Sears said. “It’s not just the shock, but the meaning of the shock.

“A shock is not a millisecond adventure. It is a broader experience.”

This was the fifth such episode Sears has contributed to since January 2024.

Meeting Patient Needs Over Distance

Sears was joining Vaes’ podcast from his office at the East Carolina Heart Institute in Greenville, six hours behind Belgium time.

Professors and students at the Brody School of Medicine like to say that medical training in eastern North Carolina prepares clinicians for far-flung patients whose treatment is challenged by these great distances and equally great gaps in specialists’ practice.

Produced 4,000 miles away, Vaes’ show is in some respects an extension of Sears’ ongoing field work in a rural catchment.

“I just want our work to matter everywhere, from a family medicine practice here in the east to a listener half a world away,” he said. “The psychological side of heart disease shows up everywhere but it’s not always getting to the patients who need it.”

“I believe in the mission of reaching patients where they are — that’s the impact of this university, too. ECU has helped my practice and research thrive, and as a result, it’s come to be known as a global leader in this space.”

A Fearless Climber

Vaes has similar ambitions for his community of ICD patients. The Heart Warrior Project has virtual meetups twice a month. Attendance ranges from 20 to 30 participants. One of the project’s avid members lives in Australia and wakes at 4 a.m. to participate.

Heart Warrior Project founder Jellis Vaes on a climb up the Matterhorn in the Pennine Alps. Contributed photo by Jellis Vaes)

“It’s super weird,” Vaes said of living with an ICD. “Hopefully it works but maybe it doesn’t. If it does you get a shock!”

He started the Heart Warrior Project out of frustration with a medical establishment miraculous at cheating death but hamfisted with the human soul coping with near death.

“In a doctor’s appointment, you only have 10 minutes. With a podcast, we have an hour with them, and it will live online forever. More medical doctors should do this, and Dr. Sears is an incredible example of someone who does it so well,” Vaes said.

Vaes is an outdoors enthusiast whose favorite pastime is climbing. Arrhythmia is an event that can happen during aerobic exercise — in Vaes’ case, at a dangerous height.

Sears, he says, has encouraged the community to imagine they are the authors of their own comeback story. What story will they write?

“Someone with a lot of anxiety and fear because of the ICD is telling themselves what might go wrong — what if you tell yourself a story of getting better, living bigger?” Sears said.

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