Lab 25: Notes "Matters of Life and Death

A.Heart Surgery
1.Dwight Harkin –
a. cuts a small hole and secures the edges of the hole with stitches
b. finds bullets or metal by touch and removes the bullet or metal while the heart is still beating
2. Bill Bigelow
a. Hypothermia – slows the heart down so the doctor can operate
b. Doctors only have 10 min to operate
c. If the temperature drops too low the heart will not restart
3. Walton Lillaheigh
a. 1st doctor to try the hypothermia idea
b. Tried cross-circulation ( where a patient is hooked up to a healthy parent and the parent circulates the patient’s blood)
i. Provides endless amount of time
ii. High risk to the healthy parent
4. John Gibbon
a. Heart/lung machine
i. Heart/lung machine circulates oxygen and blood for the body
ii. Provides endless amount of time with little risk
b. Walton Lillaheigh performed open heart surgery using the heart/lung machine on live TV
B.Transplantation of human Organs
1. kidney was the 1st organ to be transplanted
a. patients were not surviving the transplantation
b. rejection – white blood cells attack the transplanted organ
c. tried wrapping the kidney with plastic (this did not work)
2. Ronald gave twin brother Richard a kidney (1st to have transplanted kidney and survived)
3. Gave patients that have had a transplant radiation treatment, to stop the immune system from attacking the new organ
a. People died from radiation poisoning
b. People died from infections that doctors had never seen before, because the patient’s immune system was not working
4. Created a drug to stop the immune system
a. People were dying from infection because of no or low immune system
5. Preston Bonard
a. 1st heart transplant
b. Average survival rate was 29 days
i. Rejection and infection is still a problem even with medicine
6. Problems today
a. Not enough organs
b. Jobs and health insurance