By GREGORY ZELLER //
From the Keeps on Ticking Department comes Northwell Health‘s progressive Heart Hospital, which has completed its milestone 100th heart transplant.
Marking a plateau you’d probably prefer not to reach, New York’s largest healthcare system noted “a day of celebration and reflection” Wednesday, when cardiologists, surgeons, nurses and therapists gathered at North Shore University Hospital’s Sandra Atlas Bass Heart Hospital to salute Northwell’s centuplicate coronary transplant.
Among the special guests joining the provider teams were Yvonne Johnson, the first Sandra Atlas Bass Heart Hospital heart-transplant patient, and James Jones, an MD who actually completed his residency at Manhasset-based NSUH in 1988 – and received a new ticker there, plus two transplanted lungs, just four months ago.
Jones, set to turn 70 next month, was stricken with both chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and pulmonary fibrosis, conditions he blamed on a smoking habit that started when he was just 14.
“Even though I quit the habit 20 years ago, the damage was done,” the doctor noted. “About four years ago, I began to exhibit symptoms.”
Jeffrey Kuvin: Putting their heart into cardiac care.
That’s when the longtime New York City doctor was referred to the Heart Hospital, giving his entire medical experience – including decades treating HIV patients and managing private HIV pharmaceutical trials – a full-circle feel.
“I’m so grateful to be here to give thanks to my medical team and all the people who gave me a second chance at life,” Jones said Wednesday. “I also want to thank my donor and their family.
“I often reflect on what has happened to me,” the MD added. “The team here … I never felt that I was going through it alone.”
Johnson also took an indirect route to cardiac-transplant history: She died.
Twice, actually, before doctors were able to revive and sustain her after a massive heart attack in November 2017. Just three months later, in February 2018, Johnson became the Heart Hospital’s first coronary-transplant patient.
At Wednesday’s celebration, the grateful recipient trumpeted the benefits of organ-donation programs.
“I want to encourage everyone to become an organ donor,” Johnson said. “No one can ever know if they’ll suddenly need a transplant.
“Please don’t hesitate – you could be saving a life.”
While 100-plus heart transplants in just five years at a single suburban hospital sounds a bit macabre, it’s actually a fair number for “the largest provider of healthcare in the region,” according to Northwell Health Cardiology Chairman Jeffrey Kuvin.
“We have more than 300 cardiologists who participate in the care of about 25 percent of all New Yorkers who need cardiac care,” noted Kuvin, also the Heart Hospital’s co-director and a Northwell senior VP. “The Sandra Atlas Bass Heart Hospital … is the cardiac hub of Northwell Health.
“We are committed to the highest quality of cardiac care,” he added, “using the latest and most advanced medications, therapies and procedures, with a patient-focused, team-based approach.”
