A person starts to live when he can live outside himself.

Albert Einstein

Heart Scene: An Extracorporeal Experience

Kitch Loftus-Mussari & Tony Mussari
Producers
Windsor Park Stories

The first time I met Joe Zimak I was oblivious to everything around me, and there was a lot going on.

That meeting took place on a beautiful spring morning in operating room 6 at the Wilkes-Barre General Hospital.

The room was a beehive of activity as men in women in colorful scrubs worked with intensity and purpose to get a patient with four blocked arteries ready for surgery.

An anesthesiologist named Emilcar was carefully putting the patient into deep sleep, a nurse anesthetists was by his side.

Once deep sleep was achieved the motionless body of a 65-year-old male was maneuvered into position on an operating room table with hydraulic lifts so that Dr. Michael Harostock would have easy access.

First Nurse assistant, Maureen Sutkowski and Mary Ellen Vodzak worked with competence and care to harvest a good portion of a vein from my right leg.

Computerized equipment was checked and monitors were rolled into place.

A number of highly trained people crisscrossed the OR attending to a hundred details.

All the while this was happening, a perfusionist named Joe Zimak prepared a magical computer driven device that would be central to everything that would happen during the next three hours.

The Medtronic CPB performer is an impressive and very complex device. To the untrained eye, it looks like something only Buckminster Fuller could understand. To Dr. Michael Harostock, Dave Burak and Joe Zimak, it is the best Heart Lung technology available.

It stands at attention to the right and slightly behind the surgeon during the operation. Its rich blue and gray color and its brilliant touch screen complete with comprehensive details of vital signs and attention getting alarms make it a focal point for anyone who enters the OR.

This miraculous device acts as a patient’s heart and lungs during an important phase of the operation.

While Dr. Michael Harostock fixed my damaged heart, Joe Zimak made sure that 20 percent of my blood would flow smoothly from the opening in my chest cavity through four sylastic tubes that connect the Medtronic Performer to my circulatory system.

Recently Kitch and I watched Joe Zimak do the very same thing for a patient who needed five bypasses.

It was a poetic moment, a beautiful moment, a life saving moment, an amazing moment. A moment that recorded the genius and the goodness of the human spirit.

A moment that recorded how capable we humans are to do wonderful things.

A moment that recorded the highest level of teamwork and the some of the most astonishing accomplishments of medical technology and sophistication.

Joe Zimak is a big man. His stature notwithstanding, he is a quiet, unassuming man. He is a highly skilled person who spent 4 years of his life learning how to become a perfusionist. He is a member of an elite club of about 4, 000 perfusionists nationwide.

On this day, he was at the controls of one of the two Medtronic Performers in place at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital and one of the 12 that are in place in hospitals across the country. Throughout the operation he was in perfect sync with the surgeon who was the first to use the Medtronic performer in this country.

That’s right; Dr. Michael Harostock, chief cardiothoracic surgeon and Mr. Joe Zimak are walking, living breathing experts on this device that makes the operation possible with virtually no loss of blood for the patient.

Joe Zimak’s world is a world of observation, precision, vigilance, testing and record keeping. Throughout the operation vile after vile of blood is analyzed to make sure that the patient is in no harm.

Watching him work was like watching da Vinci paint. His movements are effortless. His attention is focused. His hands are nimble, and his canvas is covered with the richest color of red I have ever seen.

Watching Joe work is an experience in competence and care. The kind of competence that differentiates people who know from people who do with great dignity and class.

Against a backdrop of people working in concert with one another, Joe Zimak performs flawlessly. He does his work so well that one hardly knows he is in the room.

Joe is a man of few words, and they are spoken softly and with meaning.

His conversations with the nurse anesthetist and the anesthesiologist are brief and to the point. His interaction with Dr. Michael Harostock is disciplined and accurate. He knows exactly what to do, when to do it and how to be an effective team member. This team and its members work together in perfect harmony.

Watching him through the viewfinder of my camera, I thought to myself how fortunate we are to have people like him and the members of this lifesaving team who go about their jobs with little notice. Day after day, while they work, they save lives, repair damaged hearts and give people a second chance at life.

Immersed in the life saving sights and sounds of this very special room, it became obvious to me that this is an excellent example of is the greatness of America. This is a perfect community. This is the definition of poetry in motion. This is about as good as it will ever get. Skillful people working together to help a very sick person and loving every minute of their work

These are the genuine heroes of our time. They ask for nothing, but good working conditions. They demand nothing but the best tools of the trade, and they quietly go about their business every day with a passion for life and service.

They are simply the best at what they do, and they do it with compassion, conviction and kindness.

Joe Zimak loves what he does, and he does it well. I am living proof of that.

If you met him on the street, you would be attracted to his welcoming eyes.

If you worked with him, you would be taken by his deprecating sense of humor.

If you lived next door to him, you would feel safe and comfortable because you would know that he would always be available to help you.

If you asked Joe Zimak how he would like to be remembered, you would be impressed by his answer. I want to be remembered as a good father who loved my daughter. She is the center of my world.

Like the people he works with, he is one of the unsung heroes of our community and he likes it that way.

If only there were more Joe Zimaks, what a wonderful world this would be.

Please provide feedback to:
kitch152@aol.com, tmussari@aol.com