Goodbye, Houston! Hello, Shreveport! Heart Help is Here

              Goodbye, Houston! Hello, Shreveport!
A Schumpert Medical Center heart surgery team works intently during a not-so-long ago rare but now frequent bypass operation
Heart help is here
By JUDY PACE, Times Medical Writer/Times photos by JIM BUSH
Bobby Kightlinger w heart-lung machine
12-F Sun., Jan. 6,1980 The Times
Technicians prepare a blood vessel to be used in the bypass operation The bypass operation moves along smoothly
In the late 1940s Frances Childress,
medical care coordinator at Willis-
Knighton Hospital, observed one of
the early open heart surgery pro-cedures
at a Maryland medical cen-ter.
The operation took a long time
and everyone in the hospital was
tense.
In 1967, a crowd gathered at Confederate Me-morial
Hospital to watch Dr. Stanford Shelby
and Dr. James Bruner, local thoracic and
cardiovascular surgeons, perform Shreveport's
first open heart surgery.
The operation doesn't draw much of a crowd
any more. In fact, according to Shelby, the 1979
chief of surgery at Schumpert Medical Center,
cardiovascular surgery will become less and
less spectacular as it continues advancing.
And advance it has. And is.
Those who work locally with the process use
superlatives to describe the strides heart treat-ment
has taken in recent years, particularly in
Shreveport.
Today in three local hospitals the surgery
occurs regularly, usually drawing attention
only from those directly involved.
In the past, most patients took their ailing
hearts to Houston, as the major Southwest U.S.
center for such treatment.
Now, according to Shelby, the great majority
of people stay here for such care — care that
representatives of Schumpert, Willis-Knighton
and LSU Hospital (formerly Confederate Me-morial)
say is excellent and still moving for-ward.
In 1966, a ward on Schumpert's sixth floor was
converted into a 3-bed unit with coronary care
monitors. The facility was described in an arti-cle
in the State Medical Society "Bulletin" as
the first such unit in Louisiana.
Schumpert announced in 1969 the development
of a heart program, the first north of Baton
Rouge for private patients. The goal of the
program was to provide "definitive diagnostic
and surgical treatment facilities for patients
suffering" from various forms of correctable
heart disease and general vascular disorders."
The development of a similar program at
Willis-Knighton has come more recently, with
open-heart surgery begun there in September.
Recent months at Willis-Knighton have shown
major efforts in the implementation of a full
cardiology program. In a written overview of
individual plans for the hospital's programs,
Dr. R.T. Alsup, chairman of the Medicine De-partment,
cited such implementation as a ma-jor
goal of his department.
According to Mac Griffith, spokesman for LSU
Medical Center in Shreveport, the center is
beginning to put more emphasis on its heart
program. Included in the implementation of a
broader program was the addition of Dr. Wil-liam
Y. Tucker as chief of cardiothoracic
surgery for the med school.
The volume of heart work done locally, partic-ularly
over the last decade at Schumpert/ in-dicates
how fast heart care has advanced.
Schumpert announced its heart program just
over a decade ago but now does more coronary
bypasses than it does appendectomies, Shelby
said. By late 1979, the hospital had done 325
bypasses for the year. The bypass is an opera-tion
where a vein graft is utilized to bypass a
block in the heart.
The increase in heart surgery cases at Schum-pert
is dramatic, as shown by the estimated
number of cases compiled by the hospital. In
1969, 10 cases were treated; by 1974, the number
had climbed to 44. In 1977, 96 cases were han-dled,
and in 1978, 264.
The years have brought not only increased
cases, but also improved technology. Particu-larly
spectacular developments have been
made in diagnostic testing, with expensive and
elaborate machines used to help determine the
shape a person's heart is in.
C.J. Budd I I I , technical director of cardiology
at Willis-Knighton, said the surface has just "
been scratched in heart-care technology, with
advancements being made almost monthly.
The changes, according to Budd, mean pa-tients
receive better care. Borderline patients
are cured and "cardiac cripples" are a rarity.
Patients who five or 10 years ago might have
fallen prey to a "lock 'em up in the attic"
attitude are now dealt with routinely, he said.
Both Willis-Knighton and Schumpert are em-phasizing
education as part of their expanding
cardiac care programs, helping to remove some
of the mystery from a heart operation.
At Schumpert, at the request of a
physician, a patient is taught
about heart disease and what to
expect with surgery or tests. In a
four-month old program, pa-tients
are given a brochure and
shown a slide presentation to
help ease the fright of such treat-ment
by letting them know what to expect.
In Willis-Knighton's program, a recent addi-tion
is a series of five classes for heart patients,
their friends and families. The classes, held
each afternoon, were developed with the aid of
doctors and are recommended to patients bv
doctors. Topics for the sessions include physical
activity, diet and medication.
"The personal touch with the patient makes all
the difference in the world," Budd said of the
process of making contact with a patient
beforehand.
Emphasis is also put on the patient's psy-chological
health after surgery, shown by
progressive care units at the hospitals. In such a
unit a patient can be closely monitored without
the confines of an intensive care unit.
Local experts in the field agree that heart care
will keep advancing much as it has for quite a
while to come.
However, the expense of providing such care
may prohibit some hospitals from getting into
the field without the volume of patients to justify
it, they say. New testing equipment is extremely
expensive, as is equipment used in the operating
room.
The incredible expansion of heart care, with its
fancy equipment and complex procedures, is
not just a phenomenon in Shreveport, Shelby
said, but is seen all over the United States. It
represents, he said, a commitment to
cardiology.
Perhaps local care is summarized from some
of Shelby's remarks:
When it comes to heart treatment, the bottom
line is results.
The more routine and systematic procedures
become, the better the results.
Looking at results, Shreveporters will increas-ingly
opt to stay at home for treatment.
The Times Sun., Jan. 6, 1980 13-F