Day 2

Alright so, another bright and early day with Dr. Moore at the Baylor Heart Hospital. When I arrived at the hospital, we immediately dressed for surgery and began the same procedure from yesterday (removing blockage from the carotid artery). I learned today that most patients with carotid artery disease do not experience symptoms until it is almost too late. These types of blockage are usually only discovered if they are found when doing testing on another area or after the patient experiences a stroke or other serious neurological complications. I also learned that there is another type of procedure, called angioplasty, that is minimally invasive; however, it has not yet been approved for patients who do not display symptoms because of unnecessary risks. A diagnosis of carotid artery disease can be confirmed using an ultrasound, which measures the velocity of blood flow. If the artery is blocked, the blood will flow much faster through the area because of the smaller diameter of the vessel.

After this surgery, Dr. Moore took me into the OR of one of his friends who was broadcasting his surgery via webcam to a group of visiting surgeons observing from a big conference room in another part of the hospital. They all came to see this surgeon do a minimally invasive mitral valve repair. Throughout the entire procedure, the doctor was on speakerphone with the director of the conference, who was conducting a Q&A between the surgeon and the members of the conference. In this surgery, the doctor made a very small incision on the left side of the chest (as opposed to cracking open the entire chest, like in traditional valve replacements). He then used probes to repair the patient's own mitral valve (connects left atrium to left ventricle) instead of removing the valve and replacing it with a synthetic one. During this surgery, the patient is put on a bypass machine, which takes blood to a maching, instead of heart and lungs, to be pumped and oxygenated. When the patient is both put on and taken off bypass, the operating room is very tense. In the end, this patient came out just fine. Because she is very young, the surgeon expected that this valve malfuction has been congenital, but she will make a full recovery and live as if she had never had the leaky valve.

Finally, I saw Dr. Moore put an emergency patient who had just had a heart attack on the bypass machine and graft blood vessels from his leg and put attach them to the patients heart to divert blood from the blockage that had caused the heart tissue to starve.

All this excitement before lunch!

So far my senior project has shown me how important it is to be able to make clutch decisions under high pressure. With a patient's heart in their hands, this would be no time for surgeons to panic. THey always keep level heads when the situation gets tense and are able to decide what is best for their patient. I have also been able to see how vital technology is in the world of medicine. Today a group of surgeons were able to further their education without having to crowd the busy operating room. And the electronic bypass machine essentially became the patient's heart and lungs so that she could have a valve deep within her heart fixed. finally Dr. Moore is able to pull up every scan and image ever taken of his patient while he is elbow deep in the chest cavity. Modern technology has revolutionized medicine and all this progress has happened in just a few short years!