I spent 2.5 years of my Grad School working as an Office Assistant in my University's Cardiac Surgery offices. I had no idea about VADs till I started working there and the Surgeon who I worked for directly was the only Heart Transplant surgeon at the time.
The surgeon once got me in to the OR to watch a heart transplant. That is still the best thing I have seen in my life. The restart of the fresh heart at the behest of a couple of ladles was just amazing. Being an electrical engineer, it still blows my mind that our body is all electrical too. The use of technology and drama that goes on in there is inspirational. I also happened to witness the worst thing that day. Being a vegetarian and due to lack of intent or access, I have never held flesh/meat of any kind. That day the doc handed me the extracted heart while the kind lady was running off of the ECMO. He asked me to poke into the artery and slimy gooey particulate matter came out with my finger. That look spoilt the feeling of putting my hand into Ghee for ever.
Good on you for taking this up. I know how tough it is on the surgeons, the residents and the rest of the support staff in general. The VAD RN co-ordinators especially that do so much in prepping the patients for significant change in QOL with the training efforts. Keep up the good work.
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I spent 2.5 years of my Grad School working as an Office Assistant in my University's Cardiac Surgery offices. I had no idea about VADs till I started working there and the Surgeon who I worked for directly was the only Heart Transplant surgeon at the time.
The surgeon once got me in to the OR to watch a heart transplant. That is still the best thing I have seen in my life. The restart of the fresh heart at the behest of a couple of ladles was just amazing. Being an electrical engineer, it still blows my mind that our body is all electrical too. The use of technology and drama that goes on in there is inspirational. I also happened to witness the worst thing that day. Being a vegetarian and due to lack of intent or access, I have never held flesh/meat of any kind. That day the doc handed me the extracted heart while the kind lady was running off of the ECMO. He asked me to poke into the artery and slimy gooey particulate matter came out with my finger. That look spoilt the feeling of putting my hand into Ghee for ever.
Good on you for taking this up. I know how tough it is on the surgeons, the residents and the rest of the support staff in general. The VAD RN co-ordinators especially that do so much in prepping the patients for significant change in QOL with the training efforts. Keep up the good work.
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