Work and Hobby Both Are Delicate Operations
Willie Nelson’s soft Texas twang drifts from the stereo speakers and eight assistants hustle dutifully through their paces as Dr. William Thibault prepares for surgery.
It is 7:30 a.m. on Valentine’s Day in the brightly lit operating room at Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center and Thibault, the center’s chief heart surgeon, has begun a routine he follows religiously every time he goes to work. Surgery, like flying airplanes, a hobby of Thibault’s, requires minute preparation, he said.
“You can’t just rely on your memory,” said Thibault, 53, a heart and thoracic surgeon since 1977. “You need a checklist, just like a pilot does. At least that’s how I do it.
“The ideal thing is to do the same operation the exact same way every time. Of course, it’s impossible to do. But you can try.”
Thibault watches a tape of his patient’s heart after an angiogram, a moving picture of the heart’s functions, then places pieces of paper on the screen and traces precisely where he will graft and stitch and repair. His drawings go on a bulletin board on the operating room wall, next to the patient’s X-rays, in plain view throughout the procedure. “I can see exactly what I want to do. Plus, if you draw something out, it helps to embed it in your memory. For me anyway,” Thibault said.
About 300,000 Americans a year undergo coronary artery bypass surgery, a four- to six-hour procedure that was revolutionary in the 1960s but became common in the 1970s. Thibault, one of about 20 heart surgeons in Orange County, performs more than 100 each year. On rare occasions, he does three in one day.
On this day, Thibault has already made his rounds through the hospital and talked with a man in his 60s in the intensive care unit who had open-heart surgery the day before. The patient received a new aortic valve and had a quadruple bypass, but he will probably leave the hospital in three days.
“Usually the heart responds very well to this surgery,” Thibault said. “Up until now, it has been such a struggle for the heart to squeeze blood though this damaged valve. Now it will flow so much more smoothly and easily.”
“He will be eating solid food and walking around the next day. We encourage them to do this. It helps the lungs work better. Your whole body responds better to activity.”
Two hours into the operation, Thibault will have his patient’s heart cooled down to about 60 degrees and totally stopped, leaving it still enough for the delicate surgery. Then it will rev up again--sometimes with the help of a light electric jolt--and resume its own rhythm, Thibault explains.
“Two things in my life never fail to fascinate me,” Thibault said. “One is when you are gathering speed on a runway and give the plane the throttle so it lifts off, up in the air. The other is, after the operation is done, you rewarm the heart and it starts beating again. You never get tired of seeing that.”
Piloting airplanes has been a relatively recent addition to Thibault’s life. Surgery is something he has wanted to do since he was a child in Worcester, Mass.
“I knew when I was a little kid I was going to be a surgeon. There was a television show, I think it was called ‘Medic,’ with Richard Boone. They used to show actual operations on TV. That’s what got me interested,” he said.
Thibault’s interest in airplanes--specifically antique biplanes--came during medical school. Somewhere in the genesis of his love of flying lies another similarity to his interest in the human heart: A fascination with engines.
“I don’t really know how it happened . . . but for some reason I developed this thing where I wanted to fly old rotary engine airplanes. It’s a fascinating kind of engine. It just appealed to me,” Thibault said. “The most important thing about an airplane is its engine. I guess there is a connection [with the heart] there.”
Thibault and a partner wound up buying a Tiger Moth, a rotary engine, open-cockpit biplane built in 1935 and used for training pilots before World War II. They store it at Long Beach Airport and Thibault flies “a couple of times a month and at least 50 hours a year.”
Both activities, he acknowledges, involve accepting a certain level of risk. Flying, however, is a solo sport for Thibault. Heart surgery is a different matter.
“The difference really is that in flying you are taking a risk with only your own life. In an operation, someone has put their faith in you and your team. . . . That’s the most important thing in surgery. Your team has to be as good as it can be.”
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Profile: Dr. William Thibault
Position: Chief heart surgeon, Mission Hospital Regional Medical Center in Mission Viejo
Started as heart surgeon: 1977
Coronary bypass surgeries he performs per year: More than 100
Age: 53
Residence: Newport Beach
Family: Married, two grown sons
Education: Graduate of Dartmouth College, University of Vermont Medical School
Why heart surgery is amazing: “After the operation is done, you re-warm the heart and it starts beating again. You never get tired of seeing that.”
Source: William Thibault;
Researched by LEN HALL / Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
