Breakthrough Heart Surgery Done In Upstate

By: | WSPA-TV
Published: February 13, 2009

Ron Callihan is ecstatic about returning to work at Spartanburg EMS, and not just because he is paramedic of the year, but because two months ago he was unsure if he would be able to go back at all.
Callihan says, "I began experiencing severe shortness of breath. I was just doing routine yard work and along with the shortness of breath, I was having discomfort in my chest."
He had three blocked arteries. Now facing surgery his surgeon Dr. Steve Leyland with Spartanburg Regional Medical Center asked if he would be interested in trying a breakthrough procedure.
He says, "I would be the very first one and he wanted to make sure I understood that he had never performed this surgery on a live human being."
The robotic assisted endoscopic beating-heart surgery is only believed to be done at two other hospitals in the country. Dr. Leyland trained with one of them in Chicago for three months to be able to do the surgery here.
Dr. Leyland says, "The interesting thing about the operation is the patients have very little pain, remarkably quick recovery time and ah practically no utilization for blood transfusions and basically no infections."
Callihan shows off his extremely small scars. Just five of them on the left side of his chest. Traditional surgery would be much more problematic, because the patient would have to be cut open and the ribs spread apart.
Callihan says, "Knowing with the robotic assisted surgery that he wouldn't have to cut my sternum that everything would just be done with puncture wounds in the chest. That was very convincing to me."
Because of the minor damage done during surgery, Callihan was able to recover much faster. He was walking one day after surgery and cleared to return to work just two weeks later, that's compared to three months using the traditional surgery methods.
For Ron Callihan, being a part of the surgery of the future, is giving him big benefits right now.