Pediatric Heart Transplant Patients Say Goodbye To Chris Mashburn скачать в хорошем качестве

Pediatric Heart Transplant Patients Say Goodbye To Chris Mashburn

Help with a Heart As the Pediatric Heart Transplant Program celebrates its five-year anniversary this month at Joe DiMaggio Children’s Hospital, one behind-the-scenes superstar who has been at the heart of the program is saying goodbye. Chris Mashburn, RN, Director, Clinical Programs for the JDCH Heart Institute, is going back home to Colorado this month after spending years here delivering precious hope to dozens of families. As a cardiac transplant coordinator, Chris says the most rewarding part of her tenure here was making that phone call telling families that an organ is available. “My favorite part is when we get to call the family and let them know that we have a heart available for their child,” she says. Chris was responsible for educating families about the heart transplantation process and plays an integral role with the patients throughout the waiting phase as well as after transplant. She was part of a team that is on call 24/7 to be on hand when a heart becomes available for a patient on the waiting list as well as answer questions, address concerns or offer a comforting word. Chris was also involved with the overall development of the transplant program. “I really liked the critical thinking and pathophysiology component to understand what’s going on with patients, optimize their care, help them through the difficult waiting period and then have the opportunity to see them afterwards,” says Chris. Chris was instrumental in the program’s birth five years ago this December (a celebration commemorating the five-year anniversary of the Pediatric Cardiac Transplant Program will be held in January 2016). Prior to 2007, she had been the first pediatric transplant coordinator at a Colorado hospital. When the physician she worked with left to work at JDCH, he recruited her to help develop a pediatric heart transplant program here. Even with more than 25 years of general cardiac and pediatric cardiac transplant experience, getting the first solid organ transplant program off the ground at Memorial Healthcare System took nearly three years of planning, education and hard work. Over time, and with considerable in-house support, she smoothed the path to what is now “a well-oiled machine.” “The administration embraced the pediatric program from the beginning,” says Chris. “They facilitated and ensured that [what was needed] was in place for all of the children and families. The exciting thing is the whole system celebrates with us the success of these kids.” That success includes 21 transplants completed within the last five years with 100% survival for one- and three-year survival and 100% survival of patients on the Berlin Heart—a ventricular assist device that performs the functions of a heart until a healthy organ becomes available. Currently, JDCH is the only facility in South Florida to offer this bridge to transplantation. “Pediatric cardiac patients and specifically the heart transplant patients are my favorite to care for because you get to see positive outcomes in the vast majority of our patients,” says Chris. “They regain a healthy life or find out what it’s like to be healthy. It’s very dramatic and amazing to watch that process.”