Times journalist watches infant heart transplant at NewYork-Presbyterian

Simar Bajaj, a New York Times health journalist, observed an infant heart transplant at NewYork-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital in September, watching the donor heart begin to beat in a 6-month-old patient named Luna whose heart had begun failing in May. Bajaj had permission from Dr.

Emile Bacha to watch the surgery and arrived in scrubs around 9:20 p.m. He found surgeons Dr. Andrew Goldstone and Dr. Maureen McKiernan had opened Luna and isolated her beating heart; the team delayed swapping her blood until the timing was right. The reporter stood at the edge of the sterile field and noted that, despite the gravity of the operation, ordinary conversation and jokes punctuated the work.

“There’s always delays; the name of the game is delays, delays, delays,” Dr. Goldstone said during the operation, prompting an anesthesiologist to reply that there were fewer delays than usual and Dr. Goldstone to say, “SHHHH.” Bajaj described scenes from the night: surgeons removing the old heart, waiting for the donor organ and then watching it regain color and rhythm at the first confident beat.

He wrote that strict privacy rules kept him from speaking with the donor family. When Luna returned to the intensive care unit, her parents, Jessy and Gerson, embraced; Jessy told the I.C.U.

Key Topics

Health, Infant Heart Transplant, Newyork-presbyterian, Simar Bajaj, Andrew Goldstone, Maureen Mckiernan