The Catalyst Issue 13 | Winter/Spring 2012 | Page 22

Breathing New Life continued

at Scott & White Healthcare. “ECMO
can rescue the sickest patients when
other kinds of mechanical circulatory
support can’t.”
Other patients who benefit from
ECMO include trauma victims, like
a man who came to the emergency
room with a knife wound in his heart,
and accident victims, such as a young
man who suffered massive internal
injuries when he missed his landing
zone in a parachute accident. And those
whose lungs were ravaged by the H1N1
flu have also benefited from ECLS.
Under the leadership of Drs. Zehr and
Gongora, Scott & White is saving the
lives of many more patients through this
exciting technology.
One of Dr. Gongora’s patients last
summer was a 17-year-old boy who
was found lifeless at the bottom of a
swimming pool. Although paramedics
performed CPR at poolside, the boy
had cardiopulmonary failure by the time
he reached the hospital. He was placed
on ECMO support in the intensive
care unit (ICU) for a week, giving his
heart and lungs enough time to rest and
recover. “When he woke up, he was
completely fine,” says Dr. Gongora.
“Each save we make is tremendously
gratifying,” says Dr. Zehr. “The fact that
they’re alive, going back to their families
and contributing to their communities,
is a wonderful thing.”
About 100 hospitals in America
have ECMO centers, but not all have
the multidisciplinary approach and
level of preparedness that Scott &

22

The Catalyst Winter/Spring 12 | sw.org

Thanks to Scott & White, Summer Gilmer is back to doing
what she does best—enjoying life with her family.

White offers. Successful ECLS saves
require quick thinking and cooperation
among cardiologists, cardiothoracic
surgeons, other physicians, nurses, and
interventionists. “Scott & White is such
a close-knit community of physicians
that work together from every specialty
that we are able to create these teams
relatively quickly,” Dr. Gongora says.

VADs
A VAD, or ventricular assist device, is an
end-stage heart failure mechanical heart
pump that is implanted in patients.
It takes over the heart’s pumping
function. The VAD is attached to the
heart’s left ventricle, with a drive line
that resembles a computer cable that
exits the patient’s skin through the
abdomen and attaches to a control
device worn on a belt. Because of the
nature of what they do, VADs require
a lot of maintenance and frequent
battery replacement. Patients are
monitored at the clinic by cardiologist
Nandini Nair, MD, PhD, medical

director of the Advanced Heart Failure/
Mechanical Circulatory Support and
Cardiac Transplantation programs, and
assistant professor of medicine at Texas
A&M Health Science Center College
of Medicine. Cardiovascular thoracic
surgeons acquired the technology in
2009 as they were building Scott &
White’s advanced heart failure program.
VADS are used as a bridge for patients
with advanced heart failure who are
awaiting heart transplantation, or as a
destination therapy for these patients.
(See the Winter 2011 issue of THE
CATALYST at swcatalyst.org to learn
more about advanced heart failure and
heart transplantation.)
“Patients with a VAD as destination
therapy will have the device implanted
for the rest of their lives,” says
Dr. Nair. The use of VADs as
destination therapy is becoming more
common, as more patients rely on
them, in part because fewer hearts
are being donated for transplantation.
Other patients receive permanent