Madison Bova

Complex Care Clinical

Mrs. McKay
March 22, 2023
OR Rotation

This week I was able to observe an open-heart surgery in my OR rotation. The procedure

that was performed was a CABG and TEE on a 71-year-old male. They first started by sedating

him with anesthesia, putting a foley catheter in, cleaning his whole body with the chlorhexidine

sponges, and putting the towels over his body. In the room, there were two nurses, one student

nurse anesthetist, one anesthesiologist, one surgeon, one surgical technician, one nurse

practitioner, one physician’s assistant, and one surgical perfusionist.

The nurse practitioner and the physician’s assistant started on the saphenous vein first.

They cut a small spot in the thigh just above the knee and went in with a tool that had a camera

on it so they could locate the vein. Once they were working on that for a little bit, the surgeon

started on the heart. He opened the chest by cutting through the sternum while using tools to

keep the chest open to work on the heart and cauterize as he works. He was working to get the

mammary artery. The NP and PA pulled the saphenous vein out and repaired it. It was very cool

to see the vein out of the body because I have never seen that before. The patient was then placed

on bypass that was operated by the surgical perfusionist.

Overall, the procedure was so cool to observe and kind of put the pieces together from

learning in lecture. The patient’s surgery was successful and took about three and a half hours

and the surgeon place three draining tubes coming out of the middle of the chest to drain the

blood.