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Full title: The image from 1987 shows an exhausted but vigilant Dr. Religa monitoring his patient's vital signs after a grueling 23 hour heart transplant surgery, while one of his assistants, can be seen asleep in the corner of the operating room.
This iconic photo by James Nachtwey captures Polish cardiac surgeon Dr. Zbigniew Religa after performing the country's first successful heart transplant, a 23-hour procedure. The assistant asleep in the corner underscores the immense physical toll on the surgical team.
Haha, I read this after leaving my comment about my lung transplant.
Lung transplant is so low because two groups of people get them, very old people with COPD, the 65+ crowd and then people like me, people with cystic fibrosis, and a tiny sprinkle of other reasons. People with CF who live past the acute rejection phase tend to live a decent amount of time in much better health but there’s so many old people who get new lungs then turn around and die immediately because the surgery itself is brutal so the average is abysmal. That said mine was in 2014 and when my doctor was telling me about survival times she said anything after ten years is a “gray area” so that’s where I am now, going fantastic though
I am happy for you!