On Thursday this week I had this exciting chance to Cardiothoracic Surgery (CT). It was my first time ever to observe an open-chest surgery, and it was impressive. It was appreciated that Dr. Gerardi and his surgery group would like to have me around for two of their operation slots.
Early that day, I got to the operation room department in Greenberg, and was given scrub and stuff. After getting oriented around the operation room, I got a rough idea about the patient's condition and the surgical plan. The patient had been implanted a heart valve at another hospital for a while, but it turned out that something wrong happened to it, and patient felt discomfort. The task for surgeons was to replace it with a new one. The entire procedure was pretty much in several major steps, which are anesthesia, Ultrasound insertion, opening chest, stopping the heart and replacing the heart valve.
For me, the most exciting part is to stop the heart from beating. Before doing that, the chief surgeon, Dr. Gerardi, insert the tube into the blood vessels connecting to the heart. Those tube were connected to the circulation machine at the other end. With doctors turn on the switch of the circulation channel, blood began to flow through the tubes rather than from the heart. It was funny to look at the mechanism fully running without the beating of the heart. After that the surgeon scraped the old valve, piece by piece, from the inner wall of aorta, and sewed back the new one.
The entire surgery was a fresh new experience for me. It made me realize how complicated and delicate the CT surgery could be, and it depends both on personal expertise and team collaboration.
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