As a former Major League reliever, Scott Proctor was used to the pressure of coming into a close game, in front of thousands of fans, and trying to pitch his way to victory. Nothing, however, prepared Scott and his wife, Carrie, for the news they received 12 years ago that their three-week-old daughter, Mary Elizabeth (“M.E.”) needed life-saving open-heart surgery to correct a dangerous narrowing of her aorta.
In hopes of finding life-saving treatments and cures for pediatric illnesses, the Batchelor Foundation recently reaffirmed its commitment to the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine Department of Pediatrics. Foundation representatives presented endowed chairs to renowned faculty members Melvin Almodóvar, M.D., Miguel Saps, M.D., and Judy Schaechter, M.D., M.B.A., during a May 17 ceremony.
The family of a 4-month-old infant took their baby home from Holtz Children’s Hospital at Jackson Memorial after UHealth – University of Miami Health System surgeons performed a life-saving surgery while the baby was still attached to her mother’s placenta. Doctors removed a plum-sized tumor covering the heart of Symphony Melody Edgecomb and crushing her lungs — all before completing a cesarean section to deliver the baby.
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Surrounded by reporters and TV cameras, and wearing exercise clothing, UHealth patient Noel Zuniga ran hard on a treadmill at University of Miami Hospital’s Cardiac Rehabilitation Center. His workout during a press briefing on October 2 was a way of demonstrating how UHealth doctors changed his life for the better in the past year through a novel stem cell procedure that has healed much of the damage to his heart.
The Miller School of Medicine has launched an international fellowship program that will provide training and surgical experience with new technology-driven interventional treatments for structural heart disease. Participants in the one-year fellowship will spend eight months in Miami, two to three months at the Angiografia de Occidente in Cali, Colombia, and one month at ThoraxCenter in Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
