Cayman Islands Man Back at Work Weeks After Heart Surgery in Miami – FESCH.TV

Cayman Islands Man Back at Work Weeks After Heart Surgery in Miami & FESCH.TV:

When Shane Foster of the Cayman Islands needed highly complex heart surgery to repair a leaky aortic valve, he immediately turned to Baptist Health, where many members of his family have been treated over the years. Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute CME Tom C. Nguyen, M.D., an internationally recognized minimally invasive heart surgeon, was able to get him back home – and back to his active outdoor lifestyle – in a matter of weeks.
{TRANSCRIPT}: – My name is Shane Foster, I live in the Cayman Islands, and I’m 59 years old. I had hypertension. I’m a little heavy, so I had hypertension, but I never had any cholesterol or any real issues, so to speak, but I just kept an eye on things because I knew, in the family, there was heart issues. Before the summer, I was gonna do a lot of diving, deep diving, and the doctor said he didn’t like what he heard, like a murmur or swoosh, and so immediately, I went off to to Baptist to do further tests.

– The first time I met Mr. Foster is really a testament to technology. The first time I met him was actually virtually from across the country, and we were able to meet via telehealth. I was able to review all his images, talk to him and his wife, and come up with a game plan. So Mr. Foster had severe aortic regurgitation, and we did a minimally invasive aortic valve replacement through a tiny incision, probably about this big up in his right chest. We are able to expose the aorta, get a fantastic direct view of the aorta, we remove the aortic leaflets, and then we suture a new aortic valve into place. In doing this, we always wanna make sure we put the biggest valve possible so that he can have return to his function a lot faster. So we would put a very large valve to replace his aortic valve. And then from there, we close up the aorta and we ween ‚em off the cardiopulmonary bypass machine.

– So really and truly, I was up and running from pretty much day one. I was self-sufficient right away. Once they released the tubes on day three, I was free and I was out the door on day three. So by the time I left, I was doing five or six or seven laps around the nursing station, feeling really good and saying I can go home. Well, especially now that they offer noninvasive and the top level of expertise that Dr. Nguyen brings to the table, you now have the finest facility. there is you can accommodate anything to do with cardiology. You guys are state of the art now as far as heart surgery, and I personally could have gone anywhere. I would’ve gone to the best of the best, so you guys are that now, in my opinion. You have an amazing facility. There’s every reason to go there.

– I think the reason why patients and other doctors should come to the Miami Cardiac Ambassador Institute are probably several fold. One, we have a lot of incredibly experienced physicians here who are nationally known in their field to address complex problems. Two, we are a institute and a center that is really focused on the patient in a multidisciplinary fashion, meaning that if you have some disease process, it’s not just one doctor seeing you. It’s doctors, experts from different specialties doing and recommending what’s best for you, and not what’s best for the doctor, but what’s best for you. I think that’s really important. And then three is our phenomenal team here. Our OR staff, our nurses, our PAs, which are just as important as being an operating room, hands down, the people here really try to strive and treat everyone like family members when they come through the front doors.