Cutting edge procedure saves a local life

Doctors daily confront medical challenges, but sometimes the stakes are extraordinary.

Two weeks ago, Dr. Jaime Gomez encountered such a case at Valley Regional Medical Center in Brownsville. Donald Porter would likely not survive heart surgery. He would also die without it.

Gomez, a Brownsville native, watched as Porter, a 65-year-old heart attack victim, languished on the edge of death in the hospital. Porter had suffered two consecutive massive heart attacks, and knew his body might not survive a trip to a Houston hospital.

However, Gomez trained with top heart surgeons during a three-year "interventional cardiology fellowship" at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston before returning to Brownsville. In interventional cardiology, heart doctors are able to practice minimally invasive, lifesaving surgeries that can save patients’ lives. It was such a procedure that spared Porter’s life, and brought a new surgical technique to South Texas.

The procedure itself is fascinating: Doctors insert a small tube into a patient’s femoral artery, located near the groin. The tube has a small propeller at the end, which is able to suck blood from one section of the heart and squirt it into another, essentially acting as an artificial heart.

For patients like Porter, who are too weak to endure regular heart surgery, such a device can allow doctors to unclog blocked arteries while taking pressure off the heart. That way, even if the heart itself stops for a few seconds, the machine is able to pump blood in and out of the heart.

Then a second device is inserted into the other femoral artery. This long tube has a thin wire inserted through its center. That wire can transport tools, like splints, balloons and tiny razors into the heart, to allow surgeons to unblock arteries and do surgery from outside the body. With the two contraptions working together, Porter was saved.

"I’ve never felt so good in all my life," Porter said. "I am just so happy about the way things have come out."

Gomez spent two days preparing his staff for the operation in Brownsville, as they had never conducted such a procedure before. Porter said Gomez was a different kind of doctor.

"Since the operation, he’s kept in touch with me. He calls me to see how I’m feeling," Porter said. "I have had no other doctor treat me like this. This guy cares."

For Gomez, doing the procedure in Brownsville signified the realization of a lifelong dream: returning to his hometown to care for his neighbors. Procedures like the one Gomez performed on Porter are unavailable in South Texas, Gomez said. In fact, the medical company that produces the instrument confirmed that Valley Regional was the first hospital to purchase it south of San Antonio.

Brownsville residents may remember Gomez as the physician who saved the life of Brownsville attorney Ernesto Gamez last year, after Gamez was technically dead for 4½ minutes.

Gomez’s professors at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston said Brownsville residents are receiving care from a top physician.

"He has a beautiful bedside manner. He’s very intelligent, and he knows both the medical and human science," said Ali Denktas, an assistant professor of internal medicine in the division of cardiology at the UT-Health Science Center. "He has a natural ability with his hands. We can teach some of that, but it’s also something that comes naturally to some people. He was born with it."

Porter said he for one is grateful to have Gomez practicing in Brownsville.

"He is one heck of a doctor," Porter said.