Puja Kachroo, MD replaces Dr. Marc Moon as the Surgical Director of the Center for Diseases of the Thoracic Aorta at the Washington University and Barnes-Jewish Heart & Vascular Center.

Barnes-Jewish Hospital and our physician partners at Washington University School of Medicine are honored to be ranked among the nation’s best hospitals by U.S. News & World Report.

In the fall of 2021, Curiosus writer and Barnes-Jewish Hospital administrative fellow Emily Dovolis Thomson, MHA, talked with Muhammad Faraz Masood, MD, Washington University cardiothoracic surgeon, and other members of a specialized team about a life-saving procedure called ECMO, or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. Often used to treat the sickest of the sick, ECMO sustains life when the body no longer can. During the days of the SARS-coV-2 pandemic, ECMO, which performs the functions the heart and lungs can no longer manage, has become a valuable tool in saving lives.

This photo essay suggests the level of expertise required to care for patients undergoing ECMO, an intervention with many moving parts. It takes a dedicated team to manage the complexities.

BY Connie Mitchell

“It was a lonely experience.” That’s how Dave Barylski remembers the long hours at his babies’ bedsides. Twins, the girls were born in April 2019 weighing just more than 1 pound each after birth at 22 weeks of gestation. Barylski and his partner, Bethany Watkins, practically lived in the newborn intensive care unit (NICU) at St. Louis Children’s Hospital for seven months—and he was often the only father in the unit. “I was lucky that my job offered paternity leave and extended family leave so I could be there, but being a dad in that situation, I had to piggyback off the services that are usually focused on moms,” he says. “I was the only father there during lunches and in the support groups that were clearly aimed at moms’ needs.

In an ice rink measuring 200 feet by 85, 10 of the 12 players on a professional hockey team skate at speeds of up to 20 miles per hour, vying for a frozen, vulcanized rubber puck that, when forcefully shot, can reach 100 miles per hour. Players collide with each other, get rammed into the rink’s wood or fiberglass walls and steel goal posts, skate on razor-sharp blades and swiftly maneuver hockey sticks measuring up to 63 inches in length. What could possibly go wrong?