Minimally Invasive Heart Bypass Surgery: Faster Recovery

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:01][music] >> The idea behind bypass surgery is we have a patient with a blockage in the beginning of an artery. These arteries supply blood to the heart muscle. So, if the [music] blood supply to the muscle of the heart fails because of a blockage, then that's a heart attack.

[00:00:19]So, now what we do is we reroute the blood flow around the blockage and then create [music] a new blood flow to that artery so that the blood flow can stay consistent and keep that muscle of the heart beating properly.

[00:00:35]The incision on a traditional surgery [music] is what I call the zipper and many people call it zipper. It's a big old incision down from the chest. [music] It involves cutting the main bone, the sternum, in half, which has to heal.

[00:00:49]The approach that I use, the minimally invasive approach, is a small incision on the side of the chest. [music] It goes in between the ribs and we don't break any bone. We don't cut any muscle, either. So, structurally, the chest wall is completely intact. So, there's much less healing that needs to take place.

[00:01:05]There's much less pain. The disability is almost minimal. Almost all of my patients get back to full activity within 8 days or 10 days.

[00:01:16]Who is a candidate for this surgery? And the answer to the question is basically everybody. I can almost always figure out a solution for almost every patient to create a minimally invasive approach for them.

[00:01:32]The symptoms associated with blocked arteries can be very wide varying. We have [music] the most classic one is crushing chest pain. There are other symptoms, though, and this is why it's a big masquerader. It could be back pain.

[00:01:47]Could be reflux, gastric reflux, [music] acid reflux. It could be shoulder pain.

[00:01:52]Could be jaw pain or jaw tightness.

[00:01:54][music] It could be left arm pain. It could even be right arm pain. If you have some sort of unusual pain, get it checked [music] out. At Miami Cardiac and Vascular Institute, we perform hundreds of these cases a year. So, we're the busiest >> [music] >> program in the country as far as minimally invasive coronary surgery is concerned.