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Maria Reyes of Roxbury has been a patient of BWH since 1975 when she visited the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital. This month, she became the first patient to undergo surgery in the Shapiro Cardiovascular Center.
“I’m very excited to be the first,” she said, joined by her daughter Maritza Mejia and son in-law Hector Mejia, a Boston city inspector, the day after a three-hour colon resection performed by Chief of Surgery Michael Zinner, MD. “I like it here; I like the doctor, too,” she added, smiling.
Zinner officially began surgery at 8:31 a.m. on July 14, when eight state-of-the-art cardiac and thoracic ORs opened on Shapiro L1. “It went perfectly,” he said. “The operating rooms are beautiful, spacious and equipped with the best technology.”
Shortly after, the first cardiac and thoracic surgeries were underway. R. Morton “Chip” Bolman, III, MD, chief of Cardiac Surgery, and team performed a minimally invasive mitral valve replacement, and David Sugarbaker, MD, chief of Thoracic Surgery, and team performed an extra pleural pneumonectomy, or removal of a lung, heart covering and diaphragm.
Excitement was high among all the operating teams. During surgery, Sugarbaker sent a message across the hall to Zinner that it was one of the best days of his career. Sugarbaker was thrilled with the new rooms, noting the ample space and bright lighting. “It’s like operating in Fenway Park!” he said.
Bolman agreed. “This is truly a great day, and everyone who planned for this for so long has done a fantastic job,” he said. ‘The equipment is really state of the art.”
Nurse Educator Linda Evans, MSN, RN, CNOR, said, “It truly is a privilege to be involved with the staff who care for patients in these operating rooms.”
The ORs are 600 square feet or larger, necessary to accommodate the needed equipment including, for example, an anesthesia boom. “Additional equipment booms have gas and electrical outlets and keep cords off the floor,” said Colleen Burns Hernandez, director of Surgical Clinical Services.
Ernst Daniel, clinical engineer, and a team from Biomedical Engineering worked around the clock to ensure all the equipment was ready for opening day. “Teamwork always has been the key to delivering excellent care to our cardiovascular patients,” said John A. Fox, MD, senior cardiac anesthesiologist. “The success of the first day in Shapiro would not have been possible without surgeons, nurses, anesthesiologists, surgical technologists, physician assistants, perfusionists, biomedical engineers, administrators and so many others working as a team.”
Stanton Shernan, MD, director of Cardiac Anesthesia, added, “The infrastructure really enables a coordinated integration of several clinical disciplines to provide the highest quality and most innovative perioperative care to our patients.”
There will be 16 new ORs in total, including two Otolaryngology rooms and four Neurosurgery rooms. The OR Desk and Frozen Section also relocated to Shapiro L1 with additional space from their previous locations.
Another surgery milestone is expected this fall, when the new hybrid OR comes online in Shapiro. This OR features several imaging modalities used for endovascular surgery, coronary angiography, fluoroscopy and CT. Both insertion of a coronary stent followed by a minimally-invasive valve repair, a common combination of procedures, can be completed in the hybrid OR.
“BWH is setting the standard for patient-centeredness in the OR, and we’ve only scratched the surface of the possibilities by bringing together several disciplines and providers with varied expertise right there in one room,” Bolman said.
The additional ORs in Shapiro are a step toward BWH’s goal of having 44 operating rooms. Once the move is complete, the Tower OR renovations will commence.
“The Shapiro ORs are still connected to our main ORs on L1,” Zinner said. “It’s not like moving to a new house; we’re building an extension onto the house we love.”
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Flashback: Exactly 28 years ago, on July 14, 1980, senior cardiac surgeon Lawrence Cohn, MD, performed the first cardiac surgery when the Tower’s operating rooms opened.