Rikk Price's - DIY Surgery

Steps seven to twelve

OK, not long to go now! Make sure you performed all the steps one to six correctly and have everything from the shopping list ready. You should have also read the first page before you started.

Step seven

To begin attaching the donor heart use the first suture to begin stitching the heart to the left atrium. The chest cavity now needs to be irrigated. Pour cold ringers solution into the pericardium after the first suturing is completed. Use the ventricular vent you used in the donors heart as a sump sucker.

Step eight

Insert a bubble free cold line after you have completed attachment. Irrigate the donor heart with ringers solution and 4 degrees C, and also to remove any air. Remove the line after you have prepared the pulmonary artery for attachment.

Step nine

Trim the pulmonary artery to size. Begin stitching the pulmonary artery from the recipient to the artery of the donor heart. Ask your bypass team to begin rewarming the patient.

Step ten

Lastly begin the attachment of the recipient aorta to the donor aorta. Before you begin stitching massage the heart to remove air. De-air the aorta and remove the cross clamp. Release cavel snares. If the heart isn't beating correctly at this point, use the defibrillator.

Step eleven

Remove cannulae and check ventricular vents, the small vent hole in the aorta, superior vena cava and lift the heart to check posterior attachment. Attache arterial line, temporary pacing wires, and one straight and one angled drain.

Step twelve

Close chest by removing retractors, joining the sternum and suturing the incision closed.

Done, organ rejection is the only thing you need to worry about now.