The Weight of a Human Heart: Lessons From the Operating Room

What does it mean to carry responsibility for a human life every day, when even the most precise work cannot eliminate uncertainty? A heart surgeon can spend hours on an operation, do everything they were trained to do, and still have to tell a patient or their family that something went wrong. What does it do to you to work with that kind of responsibility, and then return to the operating room and do it again? This lecture takes us inside that reality. Through patient stories, we will learn what actually happens during common heart operations, why surgeons perform them, and what the data tells us about how well they work. We will also hear about the near-misses and complications that are part of surgery, and how surgeons use reflection, checklists and the people around them to understand what happened and get better because of it. But being a heart surgeon is not only about what happens with your hands. Bobby will talk about communicating when things go wrong, leading an operating room under pressure, and caring for someone when the outcome is uncertain. He will also let us into the world of cardiac surgery as a profession, including how surgeons are trained, efforts to broaden who gets the opportunity to enter the field, and what the next generation of heart surgery may look like. Dr. Bobby Yanagawa is Division Head of Cardiac Surgery at St. Michael’s Hospital and Program Director and Associate Professor in the Division of Cardiac Surgery at the University of Toronto. His clinical and research work focuses on surgical revascularization, valvular heart disease and cardiac surgical outcomes. He also directs the National Cardiac Surgery Residency Training Bootcamp and has led work to broaden access to the profession, including co-founding St. Michael’s Next Surgeon program.