I receive A LOT of patient emails about their cardiac surgeons. Some of those emails are good. And, well, some of those emails are… not so good.

One heart surgeon who consistently receives praise from his heart valve patients is Doctor Vincent Gaudiani from Pacific Coast Cardiac & Vascular Surgeons in Redwood City, California.  Dr. Gaudiani is applauded for his warm bedside manner and his surgical skills. According to his biography, Doctor Gaudiani has performed over 10,000 cardiac surgeries during his twenty five years in the operating room.

Earlier tonight, I located a great video of Dr. Gaudiani discussing the basics of heart valve surgery. Due to the size of the video, I am going to post this video in two parts. (To play this video, simply press the “play button” on the video and please make sure your sound is turned up on your computer.)

In case you wanted to learn more about the video topics discussed by Dr. Gaudiani, I have included several links (below) which will further your understanding of these subjects:

• Heart Anatomy
• Heart Valve Function
• Mitral Valve Prolapse
• Aortic Stenosis – Narrow Valve
• Porcine Valve Replacements (Pig Valves)
• Heart Valve Leaflets (Mitral Valve)

I hope this video helped you understand the basics of heart valve surgery. To watch PART II of this video, simply click here.

Many, many, many thanks to Dr. Gaudiani for making and sharing this video!

Keep on tickin!

Since announcing the upcoming webcast about robotic surgery from The Cleveland Clinic, my inbox has been flooded with questions about the minimally invasive, Da Vinci Robot.

To help you learn more about the Da Vinci robot, I located an interesting, patient video about Rene Lepage from CNN that highlights the technology and the benefits of robotic surgery for mitral valve repair - for disorders including mitral valve regurgitation. (Simply press the play button on the image below to watch this video. Also, please make sure that the sound on your computer is on and turned up so you can hear.)

Also… one of the questions I keep getting about robotic surgery is, “Will my heart stop during robotic surgery?”

Read the rest of this entry »

I juut came across this interesting video about women, heart valve disease and heart valve replacement surgery.

If you would like to watch this patient video about Donna Stricklett. If so, simply press the play button and make sure the volume on your computer is on.

The key topics discussed in this heart surgery video include:

• Leaky Heart Valve Symptoms
• Mitral Mechanical Heart Valves
• Blood Thinners Including Coumadin
• Cow Valves Replacements (Bovine Valve Replacements)
• Porcine Valves (Pig Valve Replacements)

Keep on tickin!

There’s no doubt about it. Doctor David Adams from Mount Sinai in New York deserves a lot of credit for his surgical skills. Many, many, many patients I speak with praise Dr. Adams and his team – especially for mitral valve repair surgeries.

That said, I thought you might like to see Dr. Adams at work. Here is a mitral valve repair video of a 50-year old physician suffering from mitral valve regurgitation due to valve leaflet prolapse. Simply press the “play” button and make sure the volume on your computer is turned up to watch this video.

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Matthew has an interesting, video request…

He writes, “Adam – Thanks for your book and blog. I’m 47 years old and in the ‘waiting room’ right now. I have a mitral valve prolapse with moderate mitral regurg. My cardiologist thinks I may need surgery within the next 1-2 years. Curious to know if you have any echocardiograms that show a severe mitral valve prolapse with mitral regurgitation? Thanks, Brian”

Sure thing Brian! Here is an echocardiogram of a mitral valve prolapse. Although the video has no sound, you can see a significant mixture of blue and red colors near the valve. (The colors in the echocardiogram indicate the motion of blood around the mitral valve.)

If you look even closer, you can see that the mitral valve in this echocardiogram has severe prolapse. You can see the failure of the mitral leaflets to seal tightly. Plus, the rampant mixture of red and blue colors in the echocardiogram illustrates significant backward blood flow. Unfortunately for this patient, I believe this is a very diseased mitral valve that may require surgery.

I hope this echocardiogram of the mitral valve prolapse was helpful.

Keep on tickin!