Two simultaneous heart and lung transplants in Gdansk

The chief operating surgeon and the doctor with substantive supervision over the entire procedure and treatment was Jacek Wojarski , MD, from the UCK Department of Cardiac Surgery, coordinator of the lung transplant program. He is a specialist cardiac surgeon and clinical transplantologist who has many years of experience in both heart and lung transplantation. Dr. Wojarski, along with two colleagues - Slawomir Zeglen, MD, and Wojciech Karolak, MD - were hired at UCK in 2018 to implement a lung transplant program in Gdansk in addition to their work in the Department of Cardiac Surgery.

For patients whose disease had led to irreversible changes in both organs, simultaneous heart and lung transplants were the only chance for survival. During the hours-long procedures, a large team of surgeons and anesthesiologists, instrumentation and anesthesia nurses, as well as a team of perfusionists operating the extracorporeal circulation apparatus - necessary for these operations - worked in the operating room. At the same time, a separate team, consisting of two cardiac surgeons, an anesthesiologist and an instrumentation nurse, participat...