Hey, I hope everyone is doing okay tonight.

I wanted to share some personal thoughts because it’s been a long day. I’m taking a short break right now, and it looks like a long night ahead.

My family and friends often wonder how I do it, especially at my age. I just turned 68. I’ve performed more than 8,500 heart surgeries, and sometimes my colleagues wonder the same thing, particularly on difficult days like today.

Thankfully, our patients are doing well.

Hospitals never close. They’re open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The lights are always on. On any given night, inside an operating room, there is a team of surgeons, anesthesiologists, nurses, perfusionists, physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and technicians all working together to save a single patient’s life.

In those moments, there is no room for fatigue. The stakes are simply too high. When a patient is critically ill, there is no pause button. There is no opportunity to say, “Let’s continue tomorrow.”

Every decision matters. Every movement matters. Every second matters.

People often wonder what it’s like to be a heart surgeon. They see the major operations, but what they don’t see are the years of preparation and focus. It takes sixteen years after high school: four years of college, four years of medical school, and eight years of residency training.

I’ve now been doing this work for 35 years, and what keeps us going isn’t just skill or training. It’s the extraordinary team that stands behind us.

It’s the scrub nurse who anticipates your next move. It’s the anesthesiologist monitoring every heartbeat and blood pressure change. It’s the perfusionist managing the heart-lung machine. It’s the physician assistants, nurses, and ICU staff who continue fighting for the patient long after the operation is complete.

No one saves a life alone.