Adam’s Heart Valve Surgery Blog

I just received an interesting question that reads, “What do you know about the Priminsters Heart Surgery?”

I’m no spelling genius, but I think the question is actually, “What do you know about the Prime Ministers Heart Surgery?” (If I’m wrong about the priminsters heart surgery part, I’m sorry.)

Regardless, this is a great question.

Often times, when patients are diagnosed with the need to have heart surgery, they are interested to learn about well-known, former patient that have had successful heart surgery - angioplasty, heart valve surgery, etc.

As I have learned during my research, there are many, many, many heart surgery success stories - for many different types of heart procedures.
That said, there are five priminsters I know of (there is probably more) who had heart surgery, including heart valve surgery.

In 2005, Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister of England, had a heart procedure called cathether ablation at Hammersmith Hospital. This is a relatively simple technique that is performed on thousands of heart patients every year.

In this form of cardiac surgery, a wire is inserted through the veins into the heart cavity allowing the cardiothoracic surgeon to “map” the rhythm disorder. The wire then emits tiny pulses of energy to fix the heart’s rhythm. Patients usually spend one night in the hospital and are back to work in 2-3 days.

In addition to Tony Blair, two prime ministers from Slovakia and Greece have had heart surgery.

• Slovakia’s former Prime Minister Vladimir Meciar underwent heart surgery in 2007. The TASR news agency said that Meciar, 64, underwent a multiple bypass surgery in the central Slovak city of Banska Bystrica.
• Former Greece Prime Minister Constantine Mitsotakis had heart surgery in Athens. Mitsotakis, 88, had a double bypass operation at the Onassis Cardiac Surgery Center. His surgeon was Alkiviadis Mihalis.

As for prime ministers who have had heart valve replacement surgery:

• Trinidad Prime Minister Patrick Manning had a heart valve replacement surgery in Cuba in 1998 and returned in 2004 to have a pacemaker implanted.
• Georgian Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli had two heart valves replaced in Houston, Texas.

In addition to prime ministers, there are many other well-known personalities to have had successful heart surgery. Some of those people include Arnold Schwarnegger (Heart Valve), Regis Philbin (Bypass), Ronny Turiaf (Heart Valve), David Letterman (Bypass).

I hope this helps shed some light on the topic of priminsters heart surgery.

Keep on tickin,

Adam

Adam Pick is the author of The Patient’s Guide To Heart Valve Surgery, a unique book which integrates the clinical facts of heart valve surgery with the personal experiences of an actual heart valve surgery patient. This special book was designed to minimize stress and enhance the patient’s recovery. To learn more about Adam’s heart valve surgery book, click here.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 11th, 2007 at 9:04 am and is filed under Announcements, Pictures, Patient Success Stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Print This Post | EMail This Post.