Heart Surgery at St. Luke's
Thousands of heart surgeries are performed every day in the United States. Modern medicine allows for heart surgery with the advances of a heart-lung machine, which takes over the heart during surgery, and body cooling techniques, which allow time for surgery without causing brain damage.
During heart surgery, a highly trained group works as a team including:
- Cardiovascular surgeon - the head of the surgery team and performs the key parts of the surgery.
- Assisting surgeons – take direction from the cardiovascular surgeon
- Cardiovascular anesthesiologist - gives medicines that make the patient sleep during the surgery (anesthesia) and monitors the ventilator during surgery
- Perfusion technologist - runs the heart-lung machine
- Cardiovascular nurses - nurses specially trained to assist in heart surgery
Many kinds of surgery are now performed on the heart and blood vessels including:
