Busy morning

It's a busy morning for me... I've got two cases to start... one of them is a Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) in a really sick patient with bad heart failure.

She's in the intensive care unit and will be a transport to the OR. I'm there a few minutes early (as I try to do, but don't always succeed) I meet my resident in the ICU and he tells me the case is on hold.

"Why?" I ask.

Apparently there are two LVADs scheduled for that day, which is pretty rare. They do have two sets of surgical instruments, but there's a particular wrench which they use to tighten certain components of the device. They only have one of those wrenches. They don't want to start the case unless they make sure they have everything they need for the surgery. Of course the OTHER room has already started.

I'm more than a little annoyed... both cases have the potential for lasting most of the day... so a delayed start is less than optimal. Both cases had been scheduled since the day before, so you think that it would have occurred to someone to deal with the problem before it was an issue.

The charge nurse was in the process of contacting the representative from the device manufacturer to see if he could bring the extra wrench.

A few minutes later, they said we could go ahead. The two surgeons agreed that whomever was to the stage that needed the wrench first would get to use it first. Then they would quickly clean and resterilize it so the other could use it.

Not the best solution, but workable I guess.

In the meantime, the representative from the company was able to get there in time with extra tools so that there was actually no issue. Still much unnecessary stress for me though.

A day

Been gone for a while, busy at work, vacation (wasted nothing too fun), then busy at work sorry there's been not much posting.

Put in a LVAD (left ventricular assist device) in a patient, which is an assist device to help the left side of the heart. Another patient had an RVAD which was a device to help the right side of the heart which we took out. Stressful day though... now doing some general cases while the overnight guy does a heart... what a way to make a living.

Tough Day

Thursday was a tough day. I was the cardiac faculty on call, so I knew from the start it was going to be a long day. I came in early because there was a conference on echocardiograms that I wanted to go to. Anyway I was wandering in, and my pager went off... never good in the morning. "Case going on in room 7" I change quickly and get in there. A heart transplant. Just starting really... It's patient with bad heart failure that has a Heartmate (a type of left ventricular assist device). Of course he's had about three previous heart operations so there's lots of scar tissue in the chest makin the operation much more dangerous and complicated.
Anyway... the new heart is in the patient about 3 pm or so. It's not going well as we come off bypass, but we're doing reasonably. All of a sudden, the blood pressure drops and I see a bunch of air on the echocardiogram. Part of the hears stops functioning well... So I assume some air has gone down one of the coronary arteries. We crash back on bypass... Left heart starts functioning a bit better but now the right side doesn't look so well. We end up after struggling a bit assisting the right side of the heart with Abiomed right ventricular assist device. This are settling out, the all of a sudden the left side of the heart is starting to look bad.... Now a discussion ensues on if they need to put the patient on ECMO (extacorporeal membrane oxygenation). Ends up they endup supporting the left side of heart with a left sided Abiomed.
Now we are supporting both sides of the heart, and the patient is relatively stable We're pouring clotting factors and blood so the patient will stop bleeding. They'll try to wean the patient off assistance early next week. So this patient came into the hospital with a bad heart and a Left ventricular assist device... now has a different heart and assistance for both sides of the heart. Only time will tell. By the way it's 9pm we're finally done. a quick 16 hour case. I'm so exhausted.

Monster Garage

Image taken from Thoratec Corporation website without permission. Image property of Thoratec Corporation


I've been a full time cardiac anesthesia staff now for about a month. I thought I would be spending more time in the heart room, but it only ends up being about one day a week. Oh well. i don't mind the general ORs.

Wednesday was an interesting day in the OR. Two big cases by the newest cardiac surgical staff -- he just started in July, the same time as I did. They're giving him pretty big cases even though he's the most junior. Maybe it's a way of breaking him in or something. I don't know.

Our first case was an exchange of an abiomed LVAD for a heartmate LVAD. LVAD stands for left ventricular assist device. It's type of support to help the heart when it can't function well enough on its own. The difference between the two devices is that the first is a mini-fridge size device that sits next to the bed and has tubes connecting it to the heart... the second is an implantable device (think softball sized tuna can) connected to the heart to help pump. Patients with this devices can even go home. Mostly it's used as a bridge to transplantation. It wasn't a terribly long case, but it can be complicated. There's multiple vasoactive medications, nitric oxide, and a transesophageal echocardiogram to deal with. Also a tangle of IVs and lines. Went very well though.

The second patient had an even sicker heart. He had a Heartmate LVAD(see above) supporting his left heart and a abiomed RVAD (right ventricular assist device) supporting his right heart. He had recovered enough function in his right heart to have the RVAD removed. There's no cardiopulmonary bypass, but you have to deal with the possibility of a lot of bleeding. ALso the possibility exists that the right heart isn't ready to come off support yet and will fail after you cut off support. Again it went pretty well so I can't complain. But there's a lot to think about and take care of. I guess that's why I like being in the cardiac ORs