Open Heart – Notes

A successful cardiac surgeon is a man who, when asked to identify the three best surgeons in the world, has difficulty in naming the other two.
 —Denton Cooley

Drive-line infection

A spinning blood pump the size of a bicycle bell, weighing just half a pound. Electromagnets drove one single moving part—a six-bladed turbine. First called the AB-180, it was intended to support the circulation for up to six months.

Tandem heart

ALCAPA is the acronym for anomalous left coronary artery from the pulmonary artery

extra-corporeal membrane oxygenation, or ECMO

When I was young and full of life,
 I loved the local doctor’s wife,
 And ate an apple every day,
 To keep the doctor far away.
 —Thomas W. Lamont

Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.
 —Theodor Seuss Geisel

CentriMag ventricular assist device. TheraTec