Bill Clinton Surgery Completed AOKay

[Shine_on_Syd]

NEW YORK (AP) - Former President Clinton underwent heart bypass surgery Monday at a Manhattan hospital, and an aide to his wife said "everything has been going smoothly."

A separate source close to the Clinton family told The Associated Press that the surgery was complete, and that hospital officials planned a press briefing later in the day.

Preparations for the surgery began at about 6:45 a.m. at New York Presbyterian Hospital/Columbia in upper Manhattan, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity. The surgical team was being led by Dr. Craig R. Smith, chief of cardiothoracic surgery, the source said.

Clinton, 58, was hospitalized Friday after suffering chest pains and shortness of breath. He and his family issued a statement on the Clinton Foundation's Web site on Sunday, saying they felt "blessed and grateful for the thousands of prayers and messages of good will we have received these past few days." They also expressed thanks that the medical problem was detected in time.
In bypass surgery, doctors remove one or more blood vessels from elsewhere in the body and attach them to arteries serving the heart, detouring blood around blockages. The vessel typically comes from elsewhere in the chest, although doctors sometimes take one from an arm, a leg or the stomach.

Doctors say the surgery is a routine procedure and Clinton should recover within a month or two.

In a telephone call Friday evening to CNN's "Larry King Live," Clinton said he was "a little scared, but not much."

"I'm looking forward to it," Clinton said of the surgery. "I want to get back. I want to see what it's like to run five miles again."

Clinton's tests showed no heart attack, but a source close to the family said there were three or four clogged arteries. Several surgeons uninvolved in Clinton's care said they didn't think his doctors would risk treating him with newer, experimental approaches like robotic surgery or laparoscopy, sometimes called keyhole surgery.

(AP) U.S. President Bill Clinton is shown as he speaks at the ceremony for the 50th anniversary of the...
Full Image
"With three-vessel disease in a president, I don't think I'd be doing it," said Dr. W. Randolph Chitwood, chief of cardiovascular surgery at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C., and a spokesman for the American College of Cardiology.

Because Clinton is only 58 and in good health, "he'll do fine" with traditional open-heart surgery, Chitwood said.

Although deaths from bypass procedures are rare, the hospital's Columbia center, where Clinton is being operated on, had the highest death rate in New York state for heart bypass surgeries in 2001 - 3.7 percent, according to a state Health Department report cited in Monday's New York Times.

But the hospital's death rate for bypasses has dropped each year since then, to less than 1 percent last year, hospital spokeswoman Myrna Manners said. U.S. News & World Report this year ranked New York Presbyterian seventh in the nation for heart surgery.

The Clinton family had no comment on the state Health Department report, The New York Times said.

(AP) Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton speaks to the media outside the Milstein Hospital Building which is...
Full Image
Clinton has blamed the blockage in part on genetics but also said he "may have done some damage in those years when I was too careless about what I ate."

As president, Clinton was an avid jogger but also known for his love of fast food. He has appeared much slimmer since early in the year, when he said he had cut out junk food, gone on the South Beach diet - which limits carbohydrates and fats - and started a workout regimen.

Clinton had a cancerous growth removed from his back shortly after leaving office, and earlier had a precancerous lesion removed from his nose. He has also battled allergies.

But otherwise, Clinton suffered only the problems that often accompany normal aging and a taste for junk food - periods of slightly elevated cholesterol and hearing loss.

Clinton should spend less than a week in the hospital, and may have some mood swings, loss of appetite, difficulty sleeping or other problems afterward, but should fully recover in a month or two.

(AP) Sen. Hillary Clinton speaks to the media outside the Milstein Hospital Building which is part of...
Full Image
On Saturday night, Clinton had a long telephone conversation with Sen. John Kerry on presidential campaign strategy, said a Democratic official familiar with the talk who spoke on condition of anonymity. Before he fell ill, Clinton had expected to campaign for Kerry.

---__

Associated Press writers Terence Hunt and Marilynn Marchione contributed to this report.
__________________
James Halldorson

Porcine AVR - Medtronic 27 mm stentless Freestyle
(aborted Ross Procedure)
Beth Israel, Manhattan
Surgeon - Paul Stelzer, MD
4/18/03
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Nobody knows where you are, how near or how far.
Shine on you crazy diamond.
Shine on Syd.
Edit/Delete Message

 

[Debrinha GT]

On the way to recovery

On the way to recovery

It's all very interesting! I've seen some of these comments on the news myself and I hope that MR. Clinton has a very speedy recovery from now on. I'll continue to remember him in my prayers.

Débora

 

[hensylee]

Thanks for the information. We have, naturally, been preoccupied with the hurricane for several days and I hunted tonight for news of the surgery because I knew it was this morning. I just didn't find it and was concerned about President Clinton. I figured he was ok, because, if not, it would be everywhere on TV. Glad to know he will be fine.

 

[catwoman]

Resting ... "comfortably"????

Resting ... "comfortably"????

I particularly picked up on a broadcast last night that said Clinton was resting comfortably ... Huh??? I don't remember being able to rest "comfortably" after MVR for quite a while.
Guess the airhead reporter/script writer had NEVER had OHS of any kind.

My supervisor had also picked up on the comment and we discussed it this morning. His dad had AVR (tissue) earlier this year, so he's seen 2 people recuperate from OHS in the last 14MO. He, too, was very interested in the "resting" and "comfortably."

I said, resting? Nope. Pretty much knocked out, maybe. Comfortably, not a chance, at least not yet.

Seriously, I do wish him the best in his recovery.

 

[Ross]

I've watched so much misleading bs on his heart surgery that I don't even want to hear another word about it. We all know full well it is no cake walk. These moron disinformation spreading reporters need to shut up.

 

[Granbonny]

I agree, Ross. Being stuck in house due weather..We shut off T.V and turned radio on..So tired of weather, Bill's surgery and Russia. the worse I heard was someone say that Bill would not need a Nurse at home. Yeah, right..I can just see Hillary staying up all night with him for bathroom, meds, ect. cooking. Like my Hubby did for me. He slept on sofa next to me for 2 weeks. Can you see her doing that?..Plus I heard he had 2 back-up teams of everyone..and we only had 1 team. ..I am so glad he caught his heart problems in time. sounds like the big one was coming Now, he needs at least 3 months away from media..to recoup..Hoping the best for him. bonnie

 

[labguides]

When by-pass surgery is done, is the patient on The Pump?

 

[catwoman]

Some CABG patients are put on a pump, some aren't. Some surgeons use a technique called the "beating heart."

Don't know if any VR techniques permit the surgeon(s) to bypass the heart-lung machine.

 

[Jennie]

Heart surgeon meets tee time, misses Clinton

Heart surgeon meets tee time, misses Clinton

Heart surgeon meets tee time, misses Clinton

By Tom Watkins,
CNN
Monday, September 6, 2004 Posted: 7:28 PM EDT (2328 GMT)

(CNN) -- If the case of former President Bill Clinton is any example, being a big shot can sure help get a doctor, but it doesn't guarantee first choice.

Dr. O. Wayne Isom said he was at his East Hampton home at 7 a.m. Friday when he got a call from a primary-care practitioner at Westchester Medical Center asking him to accept a patient transfer for emergency coronary surgery.

"I said, 'I'm on vacation,' " Isom recalled in a telephone interview.

"And he said, 'Well, it's an important person.'

"And I said, 'Well, they're all important.' And I had a tee time at 9 o'clock.

"He said, 'Well, they want you.'

"And I said, 'Who is it?'

"And he said, 'I can't tell you. It's an important person.'

"I said, 'If you can't tell me, then I'm going to play golf.' "

At that, the doctor asked Isom, a cardiac surgeon and surgeon in chief at Weill-Cornell Medical Center in New York, whom he would recommend at his sister institution, Columbia-New York Hospital, in Upper Manhattan.

"And I said, 'I'd select Craig Smith,' " the chairman of the division of cardiac surgery.

Isom said his recommendation "probably had an influence" in Clinton's decision to go with Smith.

Recommending others can be tough for cardiac surgeons, who generally hold themselves in high regard, he said.

"If you ask a real good cardiac surgeon to name the top three heart surgeons of all time, they'll have trouble naming the other two," he said.

That's not necessarily bad, he said.

"You want somebody -- when they go through those double doors in surgery -- that thinks they're the best," Isom said.

From 1999 through 2001, two of the 175 patients on whom Isom performed a simple coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) died, a 1.14 percent mortality rate, according to figures recently released by the New York State Department of Health.

His patients include CNN talk show host Larry King, who underwent quintuple bypass surgery more than a decade ago.

Smith's record was 12 deaths among 478 patients or 2.51 percent.

At 64, Isom said he can pretty much decide what he wants to do -- and he prefers surgery that includes valve replacements to simple CABG, which Clinton underwent.

"They're a little more complex, and more interesting," he said. "A straightforward CABG is a little bit boring."

Isom, who described himself as a political independent, said he made his 9 a.m. tee off.

"Realistically, if they had told me it was him, I probably would have said, 'Sure, I'd be glad to do it.' I'm not a big fan of his but, as they say, everybody looks the same on the inside," Isom said.

Asked how his game was, he said, "It's a good thing I operate for a living."