When Dr. Amy Fiedler gets ready to perform a heart transplant, the last thing on her mind is whether the team assisting her is made up of men or women. But, unbeknownst to Fiedler, a recent transplant operation turned out to be a historic first: the first such procedure carried out by an all-female team.
“We did the surgery, just the same as we always do, and as we were finishing up, closing the final layers of the incision....I said to Dr. Blake, ‘Wow, we’re all women here,’” Fiedler told TODAY.
The procedure took place in December 2022 at a California hospital. In addition to Fielder, a cardiac surgeon, the team included Dr. Laura Scrimgeour, a cardiothoracic surgery fellow; Dr. Charlene Blake, an attending cardiothoracic anesthesiologist; Dr. Jacqueline Measer, an anesthesia resident; Ashley Risso, a perfusionist; and Ruiza Coronel, a registered nurse.
“We all looked around. It was joyful,” Blake recalled. “We celebrated how far we’ve come, but it’s also like, ‘Wow, it took this long for something like this to happen?’”
The first woman to perform open heart surgery was Dr. Nina Starr Braunwald in 1960. While women continue to make inroads in the male-dominated field of cardiac surgery, men currently make up 64.7% of cardiac surgeons in the U.S.
The all-female team wasn’t the only first for this transplant team. Blake’s participation marked another first for the hospital.
“Dr. Fiedler is making history by being the first female cardiac surgeon at UCSF. I’m making history by being the first Black cardiac anesthesiologist at UCSF. And so for all of us to come together, we made history but we make history by living our best lives every single day. It’s incredible,” said Blake.
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