Dr. Mascio wants pediatric heart transplants done in Morgantown

Apr. 29—With a resume and training like that, you end up doing cardiac procedures and heart transplants on countless pediatric patients.

That was Dr. Christopher Mascio's role at Kosair Children's Hospital in Louisville, Ky., where he also directed pediatric cardiology and cardiovascular programs — before his arrival two years ago in Morgantown to head the Heart Center at WVU Medicine Children's.

Add that to all the operating room time logged during his residency at Loyola University, sutured in with fellowships at the University of Iowa and the famed Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

During all those stints, he had a go-to procedure, and still does: It's relatively non-invasive repair, geared to mainly young hearts, known simply as the Warden Technique, for the surgeon who came up with it.

That was the late Dr. Herbert Warden, who, in the burgeoning days of the former WVU Medical Center in the 1960s, was literally the lone cardiologist in the Mountain State.

Warden was recruited in the first days of that decade, after serving on the team that pioneered open-heart surgery at the University of Minnesota.

A lot of his early patients here were in their 30s and early 40s, whose hearts were damaged by childhood bouts of rheumatic fever, which was rampant during the Depression.

"We all stand on the shoulders of giants, " Mascio said.

"It's a true honor and privilege that families have entrusted their children to our team, " the cardiologist continued.

"We take that very seriously."

For a sonic reminder of just how serious the heart's job is, ask for a stethoscope the next time you're in the exam room.

Hear that ?

The percussively muscular symphony that is you: lub-DUB, lub-DUB, lub-DUB, lub-DUB, lub-DUB, lub-DUB, lub-DUB ...

Some 100, 000 times a day, 35 million times a year, it does this.

Six quarts of blood (your internal reserve), coursing the equivalent of 12, 000 miles a day through your circulatory system — it does this.

When one component of the mighty muscle falters in a pediatric patient, he said, there's trouble.

If not in the immediate, then several beats into the teen years, or young adulthood.

"Parents can get frustrated when they see their kids running around with no symptoms, " Mascio mused.

"They'll say, 'Do we have to do this now ?' I tell them we're not doing the procedure for today ; we're doing the procedure for tomorrow."

Mascio started dreaming of his tomorrows in his hometown of Steubenville, Ohio.

He completed his kid-residency in West Virginia. His mother is a Wheeling native who was a social worker at the old Weirton Hospital.

Young Chris had an inkling toward medicine.

He just didn't know what field.

The epiphany came in his fourth year of medical school as he sat in on a cardiac procedure.

A newbie doctor saw the chest opened so he could regard the heart — not in a cadaver lab — but in full glory, serving a living, breathing patient.

It was pinkish, fluttery and roughly the size of a man's fist. Four chambers, going double-time and overtime.

Mascio marveled. Still does.

You stop the heart, he said.

You do surgery, he said.

You start the heart — and the patient goes home.

"I said, 'I need to do this.'"

Now, he needs to launch a pediatric heart transplant program in Morgantown.

As said, he's performed several transplants, and the center has a patient team with the — well — heart, to get it done.

And that's from the surgeons to certified nursing assistants staffing the wards.

"We're going to do this, " he said.

"I don't want our kids and our families going out of state, " he said.

"We can get this done, here at home in Morgantown."

TWEET @DominionPostWV