Cleveland Clinic: A Global Leader in Heart Surgery

As one of the largest integrated heart centers in the world, Cleveland Clinic has long been recognized as a global leader in cardiovascular care. Dr. Marc Gillinov, Chairman of the Department of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery, describes how Cleveland Clinic makes coming here a seamless process and provides the best care.

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Transcript

Announcer:

Welcome to Love Your Heart, brought to you by Cleveland Clinic's Sydell & Arnold Miller Family Heart, Vascular, and Thoracic Institute. These podcasts will help you learn more about your heart, thoracic, and vascular systems, ways to stay healthy and information about diseases and treatment options. Enjoy.

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Marc Gillinov, MD:

I'm Dr. Marc Gillinov, Chair of the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery at the Cleveland Clinic. Hearing that you need open heart surgery can be a startling and scary moment. Let me reassure you, many, many thousands of people across the country have heart surgery every year, and we have a process in place to make it seamless for you.

The first point is that heart surgery is usually not an emergency. If you have been an outpatient, meaning you've come in to see your doctor and the echocardiogram or other tests suggested heart surgery, usually you've got some number of weeks to decide, where do I want to go? What dates are good for me? That's different of course, for the patient who is admitted to the hospital with a heart attack. The heart attack patient is an emergency, but if you're at home, usually if you need heart surgery, you've got some time to figure out where do I want to go? Who do I want to be my doctor, and when do I want to have it done?

It is very worthwhile to seek a second opinion if you're told you need heart surgery, because these days we have many different approaches ranging from catheter-based, non-surgical approaches to robotic surgery, to standard open heart surgery, and you want to make sure that you've explored every available option so that you get what fits you and doctors are generally very happy to offer advice and offer a second opinion. So if you've just found out you need heart surgery, certainly get more information, get a second opinion, and we are very happy to provide an opinion within just a few days of getting a look at your testing, including imaging. Heart surgery is a big deal. Our goal here at Cleveland Clinic is to do it well and to restore you to a normal active life making this heart surgery just a brief interlude in what otherwise is a long, enjoyable life.

Announcer:

Thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed the podcast. We welcome your comments and feedback. Please contact us at Heart@ccf.org. Like what you heard? Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts or listen at Clevelandclinic.org/loveyourheartpodcast.