This is a new blog designed to connect our perfusion community as a whole (domestic as well as international) to one another. It has no agenda, other to educate and to share some of the exciting principals, stories, technologies that we as perfusionists all around the globe- utilize and deliver every day.

This book is a commentary not only on the intricacies of heart surgery, but openly engages and describes the peaks and valleys of surgical, ethical, or moral successes and failures.  It highlights moments where lives are saved by the strength of the character of the team- as well as surgical strategies undone by flaws imbued in the highly trained individuals living and breathing this volatile work environment.

It addresses medicine at its highest level and reveals an exceedingly technical and extremely stressful element of heart surgery that few people realize exists. 

The author himself has risen from the ranks of being a hospital janitor at 17, to leading a Naval Hospital emergency room in the jungles of the Philippines at 20.  With his 30 years of experience as a perfusionist, he has placed over 3,000 people on bypass at 56 different hospitals, across 14 states, Hawaii, and Canada.

In his own words, Frank Aprile describes what it is to be a perfusionist on the open-heart team and why success can never be measured as a simple percentage or number:

“It’s uniquely exhilarating doing something so few can do.  That pretty much describes my life as a perfusionist, putting people on cardiopulmonary bypass for open-heart surgery.

 I think we are reminded of our human fallibility (the potential to err is in all of us) each day we put someone on a heart-lung machine to perform cardiopulmonary bypass. With so many steps and moving parts in the equation, the goal is to choreograph out a perfect ‘10’ every single time.

Of course, that doesn’t always happen, as unforeseen circumstances may come up, equipment may fail, and the totally unexpected ‘never thought that was going to happen’ moment rears its’ head.

So, the ‘10’ ends up being- not the perfect pump run, as much as it disengages the focus from clinical perfection and enunciates the perfect recovery from an adverse situation.

That’s truly when we are ‘perfusionists’. The ability to adapt to rapid change, think through a previously unencountered problem, and still keep your heart in your chest- is what makes us all so special. Anybody that’s been in the field of open-heart surgery for a period of time has been in the zone. That’s a cool place to be. But ALL of us, have hovered outside of it as well.”

Pump Strong!

FA CCP

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