the first one

Exactly 1 year, 11 months to the date of being hired, I lost my first patient. I'm not sure how I feel right now, except pretty surreal. We were doing a crazy, complex case involving putting the woman on heart bypass, taking her liver out, perfusing the liver while resecting a huge tumor, and putting the liver back in her. We actually had the liver back in, the anastomoses made, and the organ reperfused, but then things went south. I could go all clinical and tell you what happened, but I think her son-in-law said it best when he said that she didn't want to live with the tumor any more, and when we put her tumor-free liver back in, she was ready to go.

rest in peace.

peace and love,

m