Word: schroeders
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From the moment it was learned that William Schroeder would become the second man to receive a permanent artificial heart, TIME Correspondent Barbara Dolan became a kind of paramedic-in-training, reading literature about the operation and the man who performed it, Dr. William DeVries. She sought second, third, even fourth opinions from experts in the field. Yet she never lost sight of the human drama. At briefings for reporters at Humana Hospital Audubon in Louisville, she found herself "slipping in questions about the decor of Schroeder's hospital room between questions about whether there was too much fluid...
...efforts to save Bill Schroeder are in stark contrast to a story she reported last spring on families whose religious beliefs led them to refuse medical care for their dying children. To follow every step of Schroeder's progress, Dolan, along with TIME'S Teresa Barker, has been almost as closely tethered to the Humana press center as the patient is to the machinery that powers his artificial heart. During her long reporting vigil, she has found herself frequently checking her own vital signs. "After six days of nonstop reporting," says she, "most of the journalists covering...
...kept the unconscious patient alive?and while a tape in the background eerily played Mendelssohn and Vivaldi?DeVries' sure hands carefully stitched into place a grapefruit-size gadget made of aluminum and polyurethane. At 12:50 p.m. last Monday, the Jarvik-7 artificial heart newly sewn inside William J. Schroeder began beating steadily, 70 beats to the minute. When Schroeder opened his eyes 3½ hours later in the intensive-care unit, DeVries bent over his patient and whispered assurances, "The operation is all through. You did really well. Everything is perfect...
Though nobody could predict how long the aging and diabetic Schroeder would survive?his only predecessor, Dr. Barney Clark, died after a courageous 112-day struggle last year?he was reported at week's end to be doing "beautifully" (see following story). But even if Schroeder dies soon, there will be more such operations, and even more complicated ones, in the near future...
...diagnostic procedures. "I don't mean to downplay the bravery of this individual," Fineberg says of last week's artificial-heart recipient, "but someone has to speak up for the thousands of people whose names are not on everybody's lips, who are dying just as surely as Mr. Schroeder, and whose deaths are preventable...