Meet the Southcoast Heart Surgeons

March 2005 | Top heart surgeon joins Southcoast cardiac surgery team

With their families and education rooted in New England, at first glance Southcoast seemed a natural place to usher in a new cardiac surgery program for Dr. Paul Hatton and Dr. Thomas Carr.

What clinched it for both the surgeons and Southcoast were the shared values of making patient care, quality and safety a priority and a commitment to bringing the best possible cardiac care to a region where it would benefit most.

What brought you to Southcoast?

Paul Hatton, MD

Dr. Hatton: I was originally contacted by Tufts-New England Medical Center because I had trained and worked there before. They new I had started the cardiac surgery program in Utica and they were looking for input on starting the Southcoast program. One thing just lead to another.

For a long time academic institutions controlled the cardiac field. This represented an opportunity to return home and provide cardiac care that is equivalent to those academic institutions.

Also, my wife and I were looking to move to a better climate - and the South Coast area is just beautiful.

Dr. Carr: It was a combination of things. I grew up in Burlington, Mass., and was looking for an opportunity to move closer to home and my family. This was an opportunity to help build a cardiothoracic surgery program from the ground up and I did not want to pass that by. Plus, the enthusiasm here was infectious - and I wanted to be a part of it and to continue my association with Dr. [Paul] Hatton.

Dr. Hatton: You look for a combination of people who have worked in the field and are successful and people who are ambitious and talented but not experienced. Then you use the experienced people to teach and mentor the new staff. I am a big believer in finding people who have talent but not necessarily experience and bringing them along.

Thomas Carr, MD

Dr. Carr: As important as surgeons are, the people around them are just as important. Having quality anesthesiologists, PAs and perfusionists are essential to the success of a program. And even more so are the quality of the nurses. Perioperative nursing is fundamental in helping to identify important patient care issues and for public relations purposes. Nurses have more contact with the families and patients. They are really the "hands-on" people who provide clinical care and emotional support. Finding nurses with the right balance of competence and compassion is critical to keeping patients in the system.

Dr. Hatton: The potential. There is a large drawing area for patients and I think we can provide top-notch care closer to their homes.

Dr. Carr: The team is really coming together well. We have a good mix of seasoned experience and youthful enthusiasm. It's always fun to be around those who are a little on edge because they are enthusiastic and eager but are not sure what to expect.

Dr. Hatton: It's not the nerve-wracking experience that the first one was. I know what's going to happen, when and how it's going to happen. The stakes are just as high, but I feel confident that we are going to have very good outcomes.

Dr. Hatton: Bypass surgery is very common now. We expect that 70 to 80 percent of the surgery we do will be bypass. There will be occasional aortic and thoracic surgery but that will be staged. We will do mainly bypass and valves at the beginning then introduce other types of surgery in stages as the team is ready.

Dr. Hatton: Whether or not to have it really depends upon the community hospital. Hospitals should only start a program if they can do it as well as other places. You do what you are good at. We found in New York that many people would not go for care if they had to travel long distances. That's probably not as true here but convenience is a factor.

The biggest thing is that having a cardiac surgery program results in the improvement of all services throughout a hospital - labs, respiratory care, everyone benefits and the community benefits as well.

Dr. Carr: The location of services is very important. Families need the convenience of having their loved ones cared for close to home. It can be intimidating and exhausting to have to drive into a distant city to visit a loved one and that does not help the process at all. You don't accomplish anything by making people travel for care when equivalent quality is available locally.

Plus, there is a certain blanket of comfort that comes with having surgery at the same place that will handle any post-operative issues, follow-up and rehabilitative care.

Dr. Hatton: The commitment on the part of administration and physicians to do it the right way - the best way. They have allocated the right resources both in terms of finances and personnel. It's a top-notch organization that is building a wonderful quality assurance program. That brings me back to a question you asked earlier about what excites me. The commitment at Southcoast excites me.

Dr. Hatton: I don't get too carried away with total numbers, but am very cognizant of outcomes. We want to do what needs to be done and do it really well. Dr. Carr and I have talked a lot about this and our goal is to provide the best cardiac care that we can - and that's not just in terms of surgery. We want to build an integrated system that cares for the majority of patients and make good decisions on which cases are appropriate to do here and which cases should go to a tertiary hospital. When all is said and done, we want people to say they want to go to Southcoast for their cardiac care.

Dr. Carr: Our hopes are really to gain the confidence of the community from Rhode Island to Cape Cod and as far north as we can go. We want everyone to know that the cardiac surgery program at Southcoast will have the same level of expertise as a program in a downtown hospital plus it will provide the added personal attention that can be lacking in larger institutions.