The Amityville honour

Jamaican heart surgeon shares Long Island, NY history

BY DESMOND ALLEN Executive Editor - Operations allend@jamaicaobserver.com

Sunday, May 09, 2010

THE Amityville Horror movie is an all-time favourite of Jamaicans. But one Jamaican has prevented what could have been horror for an Amityville, Long Island man by performing successful life-saving heart surgery on him.

Dr Allison McLarty shared Long Island history by installing a new kind of artificial heart that has given 42-year-old Long Island resident Arthur Plowden a new lease on life.

Plowden is the first Long Island resident to receive the new wonder device called LVAD, or left ventricular assist device, that supports a weak heart by taking up the pumping role of its left chamber. LVAD was only federally approved for destination surgery, as a permanent implant, in January this year.

McLarty, the daughter of Corinne McLarty of Jampro and NHT fame and Horace McLarty, land surveyor, was the lead surgeon in the 12-member team that performed the operation last month at the Stony Brook University Medical Centre in the New York enclave.

"There are few things that give me as much satisfaction as helping to restore someone to a better quality of life," the past student of Kingston's St Andrew High School for Girls said in a telephone interview with the Sunday Observer.

The story of McLarty's exploits appeared in the popular Long Island-based Newsday newspaper which quoted Plowden as saying: "I feel great. I've been walking in the hall. I was shocked I felt so strong."

LVAD consists of a surgically implanted pump attached to an external power pack that is worn on a shoulder strap or belt. Earlier generations of LVADs that were designed for temporary use, had power sources the size of a desk. The current portable power pack weighs about five pounds and provides up to six hours of energy.

The device was manufactured by Thoratec Corporation in California and carries the brand name, HeartMate II. Before federal approval for destination surgery, the device was used only temporarily, for patients awaiting a heart transplant. The new version can remain in the body indefinitely and is now approved for patients who would normally die of heart failure, but who are not eligible for heart transplant because of age or other life-threatening organ problems, such as lung or kidney disease.

McLarty said Amityville's Plowden, a landscaper, had an extremely weak heart which had forced him to be housebound. "His heart was pumping at one-twentieth of what it should be pumping. His chances of dying in the next year was 50 per cent," she added.

"This device is piggybacked onto his heart," she explained. "A cable linked to the device emerges from his side, attaching to the external power source. He will go home to a power-base unit that's about the size of a (desktop) computer and is on wheels, so he can plug himself into that while he sleeps, or while he's sitting in a chair reading or watching TV."

Newsday quoted Dr Hal Skopicki, director of the heart failure programme at Stony Brook, as saying that the device gives Plowden's weakened heart a rest. "There is more oxygen-rich blood being pumped to the body, to his brain and to his muscles, and that all translates into improved function," he said.

Dr McLarty who was full of praise for the team which was jointly led by a cardiologist, added that Plowden went home three weeks after his operation and was now able "to go shopping, walking, talking, eating out as normal...He is looking great."

Plowden seems to agree: "I would love to go to work again, and be just like everyone else. I love landscaping. I'm infatuated with landscaping and building ponds. I'm hoping that's the next step," Newsday reports him as saying.

A highly trained cardiothoracic surgeon, McLarty went to Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania after St Andrew High. She then spent four years -- 1984 to 1988 -- in Medical School at Columbia University, New York, before doing five years of general surgery there. She also spent a year in research at the Mayo Clinic, Minnesotta, specialising in heart transplantation. During this time, she researched the early versions of LVAD using animals. She then returned to Columbia to complete her training in general surgery in 1997. Stony Brook quickly snapped her up upon completion of training in that same year.

McLarty, who comes home to Jamaica on average twice a year, says she chose heart surgery because "it gives me the most excitement". "It's interesting and very satisfying to play a part in the dramatic transformation in the quality of life of patients."

She also enjoys working with LVAD, noting that she had implanted eight such devices in heart patients prior to the Plowden operation, but in collaboration with a doctor in New York City.

Says McLarty: "The success rate of LVAD is pretty good. The patient who has had it in the longest, a European, has had it in for five years and there are hundreds of patients all over the world with one."

She notes that studies had shown clearly that heart patients live longer with the device than without. In addition, the devices are getting smaller, making them more convenient to use.

"One day it will be as straightforward as putting in a heart valve. We are on the cusp of developing this advanced device," she predicts

As relaxation from her hard work, the mother of two -- daughter Isabelle, 11 and son Maximillian, nine -- says she tries not to miss a Jamaican summer or Christmas.

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COMMENTS (2)

Nicolas Henry
5/9/2010

This speaks volume about many Jamaicans, if given the opportunity. Thank GOD you migrated, if you were in Jamaica maybe we would have lost a great mind like you in the everyday carnage carried out by marauding gunmen.

Jah Imanja
5/9/2010

It is so heart-rending(pun intended) to see something positive about Jamaicans,and especially this native daughter of us who has excelled in the very difficult and male dominated field of cardio-thoracic surgery.
Neuro and cardiac surgeries are the longest to perform;they both can take up the better part of day! The environment in the surgical operating for the most part is very tense,mostly because surgeons are in intense pressure to save the patient's life.For Dr. Mclarty to endure this,and this maintain her humility,and indeed sanity, I solute her.
I worked for 18 years at the UHWI as a cardio-thoracic technician,operating the heart/lung pump during cardiac surgery.In the USA I worked at U-Penn hospital,Temple,St.Christopher hospital for children,and Pennsylvania hospital,all in Pennsylvania.Little known fact.Dr. Siva,formerly of the Dept. of Anaesthestic,UHWI,and the Dept, of Physics,UWI, had designed and used an heart assist device in the 80's called an intra- aortic pump.

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