Day 5- Open Heart Surgery- 12/9/2014

Hello Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Med Ed. The only shoe where you can learn to save a life with a few clicks and some of your time. Today, as requested by my friend, Tripp, we are taking it up a few levels. Open heart surgery everyone. So, get you dictionaries out and lets get learning.
Open Heart surgery is any type of surgery where the chest is cut open and surgery is done on the muscles, arteries, or valves of the heart. The most common type is called coronary artery bypass grafting. It's when you take a healthy vein or artery is grafted onto to a blocked coronary to bypass the blockage. Open heart surgery is often called "traditional heart surgery" because now er days, most docs use small incisions.
I know what your asking, "If I don't have to e get my entire chest taken out, why would I?" That is a good question. It is used for patients with coronary heart disease. This occurs when arteries and veins that carry blood and oxygen become hard and narrow. This is commonly called "hardening of the arteries." CHD is also caused when fatty material builds up against the walls of a vein or artery, occasionally leading to heart attacks. This is why over weight individuals are more at risk to heart attack than the average person.
How do you do such a gross looking and dangerous thing you may be asking yourself. Simple:

1. Load the patient with anesthesia
2. Make an 8-10 inch cut in the chest.
3. Cut through the breast bone to reveal the heart.
4. Connect the patient to a heart-lung bypass machine. This machine moves blood from the heart so the surgery can begin. 
5. Graft the healthy part onto the patient's blocked vein or artery.
6. Close the breast bone with a wire, leaving the wire inside.
7. Stitch up the cut in the chest.

Easy as pie. It isn't all fun and games though. There are a few risks involved. For example, chest infection, heart attack, stroke, irregular heart beat, lung failure, kidney failure, chest pain, low fever, memory loss, blood clot, blood loss, and breathing difficulty. This topic really wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. It really is quite interesting. That's all I have for today, but I will be back in a bit with a new topic. Audios.