A close look at the heart...

So, I thought I'd share my interesting experiences of the past couple days. My inpatient/clinical/note writing experiences at Cape Fear have been somewhat limited this week in my Cardiology rotation. However, yesterday I taught a class about Healthy Cooking for Cardiac Rehab patients which was actually pretty fun (minus the lady who was telling everyone that CNN.com says that stick butter is good for you...). And I've counseled several people about eating a heart-healthy diet. One gentleman that I taught yesterday was in the schedule for a quadruple CABG this morning, so my preceptor Darcy found a way to get me in to see the surgery. I went in at 7:15 this morning to watch. They prepped him for surgery until around 8. Then the PA pulled (literally) the very long saphenous vein out his leg from a small incision in his thigh. The doctor excised the radial artery from the patient's forearm, and they cleaned both of the vessels and got them ready for grafting. The doctor opened the patient's chest and cleaned the left mammary artery as well so he could use it too. The patient's heart wasn't tolerating being moved around so much, so they initiated a cardiopulmonary bypass pump to take over the heart's function during surgery. They gave the patient a hyperkalemic solution and also dumped a bunch of ice in his chest to stop his heart so they could operate. They attached two of the grafts (mammary and radial) while I was there. The surgery was supposed to take only 3 1/2 hours, but it had been over 4 hours already. I had to go meet Darcy and was tired of standing, so I decided to skip the remainder of the surgery. I really wish I could have seen his heart start pumping again though! So interesting. However, when I was in the Cardiac ICU with Darcy around 2:30 we saw the patient being wheeled out of the OR finally. It had taken over 7 hours to do the surgery! My legs would not have made it standing that long in one spot without moving. No good. But I'm supposed to check up on the patient tomorrow to see how he his, so hopefully he is feeling better. Oh, and also I saw a cardiac cath yesterday morning. I watched the procedure on a video monitor as the doctor moved the cath up through the patient's leg into his heart. Kind of hard to see what was going on, but still pretty cool. So, that's been my cardiac rotation so far! Enjoy your Fridays everyone!