All-Women Team Makes History With Heart Transplant

A surgery at a California hospital seemed like any other until the end, when one of the doctors involved realized the team was made up of all women. The team that performed that heart transplant was led by Dr. Amy Fiedler, an attending cardiac surgeon and assistant professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and each of the other six healthcare professionals was also a woman. And that five-hour procedure made history as the first all-women team to perform a heart transplant on a woman.

As they were finishing up the surgery, Fiedler says she looked up and realized, “Wow, we’re all women here.” The other females on the surrey were Dr. Laura Scrimgeour, a cardiothoracic surgery fellow; Dr. Charlene Blake, an attending cardiothoracic anesthesiologist; Dr. Jacqueline Measer, an anesthesia resident; Ashley Risso, a perfusionist; Ruiza Coronel, a registered nurse; and another traveling nurse. The reason that an all-women team had never done this procedure before is that men make up the majority of cardiac surgeons in the country. According to one 2019 report, women account for only 6.2% of cardiac surgeons in the country.

"Dr. Fiedler is making history by being the first female cardiac surgeon at UCSF. I'm making history by being the first Black cardiac anesthesiologist at UCSF,” explains Dr. Blake. “And so for all of us to come together, we made history but we make history by living our best lives every single day. It's incredible.” Fiedler says she hopes they inspire others to live out their dreams and “recognize that anything is possible" and Blake adds, “Glass ceilings better watch out.”

Source: Good Morning America

Photo: Getty Images


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