At a news conference on Friday, Florida Hospital announced it had performed its first heart transplant operation in Central Florida.
Last week, Edwin Arce, 49, woke up in his hospital bed with doctors and nurses surrounding him. For Arce, it has been seven weeks of waiting for a donor and years of heart problems that got him to this point.
“My life consisted of walking from the bed to the couch,” said Arce. “That literally wore me out. I had no quality of life before now.”
For the transplant team at Florida Hospital it has been four years of paperwork, training and preparation before the moment finally arrived, just before Valentine’s Day.
Joining the team to perform Florida Hospital’s first heart transplant is Dr. Donald Botta, associate surgical director of Cardiac Transplant and Mechanical Circulatory Support Programs, coming to the Florida Hospital team from Yale Medical Center.
“This truly was a team effort between doctors, nurses, anesthesia, emergency responders and many more,” said Dr. Botta. “It was orchestrated flawlessly with fantastic results for the patient.”
Approximately 150 members of the Florida Hospital Transplant Institute and the Florida Hospital Cardiovascular Institute had a role to play in the care of Edwin Arce.
Arce was admitted to Florida Hospital Orlando on Christmas Day because of some additional heart complications and has been in the hospital since. Because he and his family live locally, they were able to visit regularly. Prior to Florida Hospital’s heart transplant program, patients and their families would need to drive hours away to receive this level of care.
“It is such a blessing to be able to have your family around you at a time like this,” Arce said.
“I am so pleased to see how well he is doing now. The donor heart was very healthy and literally a perfect match for Edwin,” said Dr. Czerska, medical director of Advanced Heart Failure, Cardiac Transplant and Mechanical Circulatory Support Programs and one of the vital players on the team. “This heart will allow him to be much more active than he has been in a long time.”
