Dr. Chris Wehr, a cardiothoracic surgeon at Memorial, deftly places the instrument on a part of the beating heart. “Burning,” he calls out. The man at the machine announces when it has been 30 seconds. They test to make sure the burn worked, then repeat this process down the side of the heart.

Just minutes earlier, another physician, Dr. Brad Mikaelian, a cardiac electrophysiologist with Pikes Peak Cardiology, had performed a similar burning procedure inside the heart, via a catheter.

The first-of-its-kind surgery is a success, and the patient is eventually wheeled back to recovery.

Having a regular heart beat is something most of us probably take for granted, but some 3 million Americans suffer from irregular heart rhythms. While many folks live with this condition relatively worry-free, others are virtually debilitated by it. That was the case for 52-year-old Chris Hempel, the patient.

Ablations, in which heart tissue is burned to help restore a normal heart rhythm, are not uncommon. Most are done internally, by doctors such as Mikaelian. Some are done externally by surgeons such as Wehr. Yet both approaches, when done by themselves, are limited in what they can do. Patients may be subject to multiple surgeries, and even then the problem may ultimately remain.

This tag-team approach, however, helps ensure nothing is missed and that the condition can be fully treated in one shot. Through the exchange of information, each doctor can better do his own part. 

“Using that information together, we can get better results than either of us could do alone,” Dr. Mikaelian told reporters before the surgery last week.

A great win for Memorial’s mission: to provide the highest quality health care.

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