Wash DC area woman alive 30 years after heart transplant
Thirty years after Eva Baisey became the first person to undergo a heart transplant in the Washington, D.C., area, she met with the surgeon who performed the operation and the nurse who took care of her, the Washington Post reports.
On Dec. 28, 1986, Edward Lefrak, MD, performed the operation on Baisey, who was then 20 years old and a mother of two. That year, Baisey had been in the hospital a few times. She was finally diagnosed with idiopathic cardiomyopathy and told she would only live a few months without a new heart, according to the newspaper.
Surgeons had performed successful heart transplants since 1968, but the Post noted that the nearest options at the time were in Baltimore and Richmond, which were too far from Baisey’s home. Lefrak performed the operation in Fairfax, Virginia, which is near Washington, D.C.
Baisey said she still receives phone calls nearly every Dec. 28 from Lefrak and Deirdre Carolan, the nurse who oversaw her care.
Read the full Washington Post article below:
Executive Editor
Tim Casey joined TriMed Media Group in 2015 as Executive Editor. For the previous four years, he worked as an editor and writer for HMP Communications, primarily focused on covering managed care issues and reporting from medical and health care conferences. He was also a staff reporter at the Sacramento Bee for more than four years covering professional, college and high school sports. He earned his undergraduate degree in psychology from the University of Notre Dame and his MBA degree from Georgetown University.