{"id":2853,"date":"2010-09-17T21:41:26","date_gmt":"2010-09-18T02:41:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/?p=2853"},"modified":"2019-02-26T20:40:49","modified_gmt":"2019-02-27T01:40:49","slug":"minimally-invasive-replacement-mihaljevic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/2010\/09\/17\/minimally-invasive-replacement-mihaljevic\/","title":{"rendered":"Remote Second Opinion Changes Anne&#8217;s Surgical Approach"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the ongoing themes in this blog focuses on <em>patient advocacy<\/em> &#8212; before, during and after surgery. Specific to this point, I just received an interesting letter from Anne about second opinions, patient research, chest incisions and surgeon selection. In her note, Anne writes to me:<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\" alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/Images\/anne-shannon.jpg\" alt=\"Anne Shannone - Heart Valve Replacement - Aortic Valve With Bovine Prosthetic\" width=\"350\" height=\"251\" \/><br \/>\nAnne Shannon &#8211; Heart Valve Surgery Patient (Evergreen, Colorado)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Dear Adam,<\/p>\n<p>When I had my yearly echo in May, I learned it was time to start thinking <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/aortic-valve-replacement-surgery.php\">about aortic valve replacement<\/a> due to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/aortic-stenosis-valve-heart-narrowing.php\">stenosis<\/a>. My cardiologist strongly recommended two local surgeons at the new heart center in Denver. After doing some research, I asked about minimally invasive surgery.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The doctors here tried to discourage my interest in a less invasive approach because &#8220;it was really much better to have a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/sternum-broken-pain-healing.php\">median sternotomy<\/a>.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Your book taught me the value of a second opinion. So, I decided to get one from the Cleveland Clinic. I assembled my records and sent them overnight to Dr. Tomislav Mihaljevic. Within 10 days, I heard from Dr. Mihaljevic\u2019s office and received a surgery date of July 16. I still can\u2019t believe it was that easy!<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone\" src=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/Images\/thomas-mihaljevic-cleveland-clinic.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"220\" height=\"275\" \/><br \/>\nDr. Tomislav Mihaljevic<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Long story short&#8230; A minimally invasive approach was used to implant a bovine valve replacement! I had surgery on Friday, got out of the hospital on Monday morning, flew home on Tuesday and haven\u2019t looked back. Getting a second opinion and going to the Cleveland Clinic may have been the smartest thing I have EVER done.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you so much for your contribution to all of us heart valve surgery patients.<\/p>\n<p>Your <a href=\"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/adam-pick-book-2016-35.php\">heart valve book<\/a> is invaluable.<\/p>\n<p>I\u2019ll happily keep on tickin\u2019!!!<\/p>\n<p>Anne Shannon<br \/>\nColorado<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26123,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-patient-stories"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2853\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/26123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.heart-valve-surgery.com\/heart-surgery-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}