Published: Friday, December 5, 2008
Transplants take a massive effort
STANWOOD -- The Nov. 3 operation to give Steve Goforth a new heart was a carefully choreographed event involving enough doctors, nurses and other medical professionals to field a football team.
What seemed like a thousand phone calls were made to prepare for the heart transplant, said Dr. Nahush Mokadam, a surgeon at University of Washington Medical Center.
"You have to coordinate what's happening at a donor hospital and at the recipient hospital," he said. "It's all aimed at making sure that we are as efficient as we can be."
Once the heart is removed from the donor, doctors have six hours to complete the transplant, he said.
"This is high-risk surgery. People will die without appropriate treatment," the surgeon said. "In some ways it's the most stressful thing you'll ever do, and in some ways the most rewarding thing you'll ever do."
Each year, UW doctors perform about 30 heart transplants.
In Washington state this year, 34 people have received new hearts, according to LifeCenter Northwest, the nonprofit organization that coordinates organ transplants in the state. There are 46 people on waiting lists.
Once doctors learn that donor organs are available, a team of surgeons gets ready to fly -- if necessary -- in an air ambulance to the donor's location.
Hearts are the first organs to be removed from a donor, LifeCenter Northwest spokeswoman Julie Hertl said. Lungs, livers, intestines, pancreata, kidneys, corneas and other tissue can be donated, too.
"It's pretty amazing, especially the more you learn about it," Hertl said.
The heart is carefully wrapped in sterile packaging, placed in ice and then a cooler before being whisked to the recipient hospital, Mokadam said.
Transplants cost about $400,000 and continuing care runs at least $30,000 a year, he said.
The highest price, however, comes from the donor families.
"That's a huge sacrifice people make," Mokadam said. "It gets under-acknowledged."
Reporter Jackson Holtz: 425-339-3437 or jholtz@heraldnet.com.
What seemed like a thousand phone calls were made to prepare for the heart transplant, said Dr. Nahush Mokadam, a surgeon at University of Washington Medical Center.
"You have to coordinate what's happening at a donor hospital and at the recipient hospital," he said. "It's all aimed at making sure that we are as efficient as we can be."
Once the heart is removed from the donor, doctors have six hours to complete the transplant, he said.
"This is high-risk surgery. People will die without appropriate treatment," the surgeon said. "In some ways it's the most stressful thing you'll ever do, and in some ways the most rewarding thing you'll ever do."
Each year, UW doctors perform about 30 heart transplants.
In Washington state this year, 34 people have received new hearts, according to LifeCenter Northwest, the nonprofit organization that coordinates organ transplants in the state. There are 46 people on waiting lists.
Once doctors learn that donor organs are available, a team of surgeons gets ready to fly -- if necessary -- in an air ambulance to the donor's location.
Hearts are the first organs to be removed from a donor, LifeCenter Northwest spokeswoman Julie Hertl said. Lungs, livers, intestines, pancreata, kidneys, corneas and other tissue can be donated, too.
"It's pretty amazing, especially the more you learn about it," Hertl said.
The heart is carefully wrapped in sterile packaging, placed in ice and then a cooler before being whisked to the recipient hospital, Mokadam said.
Transplants cost about $400,000 and continuing care runs at least $30,000 a year, he said.
The highest price, however, comes from the donor families.
"That's a huge sacrifice people make," Mokadam said. "It gets under-acknowledged."
Reporter Jackson Holtz: 425-339-3437 or jholtz@heraldnet.com.
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