The hottest topic out there right now in cardiac surgery is the FDA approval of trans-catheter aortic valve replacement surgery.  You can read all about it by clicking on the blue box to the right or going to www.trans-cathetervalve.com.  By hitting that link, you will be simply redirected to my web page on trans-catheter valve surgery.

Lehigh Valley Health Network was indeed the first hospital to perform this procedure successfully in our region –meaning in Lehigh Valley and Northampton Counties.  The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania was one of the “investigational sites” and our colleagues at Penn have been very gracious in helping us to launch our own program at Lehigh Valley Hospital.After we received extensive training on the procedure, we performed 5 cases with an experienced proctor.  Now we are an independent program.  Below is an essay that wrote in The Morning Call shortly after we had performed the first procedure in this region.

I have always had a fascination with the history of medicine and in particular, the history of surgical procedures.  In this essay, I talk about a relatively unknown surgeon named and how his ideas from the 1940’s are similar to the new trans-catheter technologies of today!