Living in an “Age of Miracles” is a shopworn refrain in these days of technical advancement. Seems like replacing a fan belt while your car engine is running would be child’s play compared to Dr. Petracek’s replacement of a defective heart valve.

He makes it seem so routine. Unbelievable.

Michael R. Petracek, MD of the Saint Thomas Heart Institute at Saint Thomas Hospital in Nashville, TN, performed a minimally invasive mitral valve replacement under direct vision through a right thoracotomy during a live webcast on December 7 at 4:00 pm CT.

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How did you evaluate your physician? Word of mouth?

How do you evaluate someone like Petracek, a practitioner of a cutting-edge life saving technique just years old?

Yeah, you can google the heck out of Cleveland’s Heart and Vascular Clinic (which has podcasts!), Houston’s
DeBakey Heart Center or Rochester’s Mayo Clinic but how does one assess the thousands of words of deserved praise spread wide across the Internet?

Does a picture - or, in this case, a moving picture - of the actual recommended surgeon performing the proposed procedure engender the necessary trust to literally place a loved ones life in his care?

Maybe not quite the intent of this video, but Petracek’s calm delivery and decisive performance - his “work-a-day” demeanor “miraculously” disassembling and reassembling a patient’s heart - built my confidence as much, maybe more, than all the other praises of Vanderbilt’s Heart Institute.

I looked for something similar at UNC Healthcare but most of their content was static. Maybe UNC Healthcare can take note and get a bit more ‘net “interactive” in reaching out to their patients?