This morning, we met Dr. Hamrick in the Heart Center at the WakeMed Hospital in Raleigh. After a brief introduction, we quickly got into scrubs and headed in to watch a surgery that he had at around 9 am. Before going into the O.R. (operating room), Dr. Hamrick gave us a quick overview of his surgery and basically how the heart works. This surgery was adding in an additional lead/wire to an existing pacemaker/defibrillator that this patient had in order to increase the amount of blood that is pushed out of the heart with each squeeze. We were allowed to stand in the OR to watch the opening and the closing of the incision, but we could not stand in the OR during the operation due to radiation from the x-rays. The nurses and other people in the room were so good about explaining everything to us and answering our questions in ways that we could understand. The company that made this specific pacemaker had a representative in the OR to code it specifically to the patient. This representative showed us the pace maker that this patient had, but also showed us a newer pacemaker that had just been developed.
After the surgery, we updated the family, did some rounds on patients, then we went into another doctors surgery which was called a TAVR. This is a minimally invasive procedure which replaces the aortic valve in the heart through a catheter. The replacement valve takes the old valves place and the old valve is not removed. After this procedure we did more rounds with a different doctor, Dr. Wood. We were then given a tour of the ER by a nurse, then we watched a stress test. Normally, these are completed by putting the patient on a treadmill and watching their EKG (electrical activity of the heart) and their bpm (beats per minute). This particular patient was very old and too fatigued to be able to go on a treadmill, so they did it chemically where a medication is introduced to the body which makes your blood pressure drop and your bpm to increase almost as if you’re exercising. After this stress test, we watched another TAVR, then called it a day around 5pm.