Operating on soldiers during rocket fire, this robotic heart surgeon credits war service for success in field

Nov. 10—Sloane Guy is a nationally renowned robotic heart surgeon who uses the latest technology to repair patients' hearts, but it was during his military deployments in the Middle East — stitching up wounded soldiers under rocket fire — where he honed his steady hand.

Earlier this month, Guy joined the Northeast Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville as its first robotic heart surgeon. He serves as the Director of Minimally Invasive & Robotic Cardiac Surgery with Northeast Georgia Physicians Group.

War breeds medical innovation, he said, crediting his tours of duty for his success as one of the nation's leading robotic heart surgeons.

"If you look at the history of cardiac surgery, it was started primarily by surgeons returning from war," he said. "Wartime experience as a surgeon helps you become a more innovative surgeon back home."

He recalled performing his first eye surgery on an Afghani man who had been injured by an IED, an improvised explosive device or homemade bomb.

"I'd never done eye surgery before so an ophthalmologist from Bagram Air Base emailed me instructions," he said. "And it was successful. So you have to work outside your comfort zone, which a lot of doctors don't know how to do."

Described in his website bio as a real-life Hawkeye Pierce, he served two tours in Afghanistan as the chief surgeon with the 249th General Hospital detachment at Forward Operating Base Salerno, then served as chief of surgery for the 47th Combat Support Hospital in Mosul, Iraq. He was awarded by the U.S. Army with the Combat Medical Badge, Combat Action Badge and the Bronze Star.

He now specializes in mitral valve surgery and replaces the outgoing surgeon for that procedure, Alan Wolfe, whose resignation was announced in July. With the assistance of robotic technology, Guy prides himself on performing the procedure in a way that is minimally invasive.

"We're excited to see how innovative, robotic heart surgery procedures can continue our mission of improving the health of the community," Clifton Hastings, interim medical director of NGPG Cardiovascular & Thoracic Surgery, said in a news release.

But Guy said it was during his deployments as a "general surgeon on steroids" in the Middle East that he learned his most valuable lessons.

"As disruptive as my military service was to my medical career, I wouldn't trade it for the world because, first of all, it was a great honor to take care of injured American soldiers. I mean, there's really nothing more honorable than that in my mind, and then it really taught me these lessons that I needed to become the sort of innovative robotic surgeon that I became."

Those lessons come with war stories.

"I've literally done surgery while we were under mortar attack," he said.

He recalled performing emergency surgery on a U.S. Army Ranger who had been shot in the chest. The surgery was successful and the soldier recovered quickly, but bad weather prevented him from flying out.

"We still had him, and we were under a rocket attack," he said. "I woke up in the middle of night thinking, 'Oh, my god, I got an American soldier in the ICU. I got to get him to the bunker.' ... Me and the nurse basically put him in the bunker, and the guy looked up at me and he said, 'Doc, this is not good for recruitment.'"

He said that soldier re-enlisted at Bagram Air Base the next day.

Guy grew up in North Carolina and attended college at Wake Forest University on an Army ROTC scholarship. He moved to Pennsylvania and earned his master's degree in healthcare administration from the Wharton School of Business and his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. He completed his general surgery internship at Walter Reed Army Medical Center before serving as a general medical doctor and commander of a U.S. Army family practice in Germany for two years.

He returned to Penn where he completed his general surgery residency and cardiothoracic surgery research and clinical fellowships. It was there that he developed an interest in minimally invasive robotic surgery.

"I'm a gadget guy," he said. "And one of the reasons I got into heart surgery was the heart-lung machine was a cool gadget."

Guy completed his military service in 2010 as a decorated Lieutenant Colonel. He then served from 2011 to 2015 as chief of cardiothoracic surgery and robotics at Temple University in Philadelphia, followed by his appointment in 2015 as associate professor of cardiothoracic surgery and director of robotic cardiac surgery at Weill Cornell School of Medicine/New York Presbyterian Hospital in New York City.

"I was the first person at that institution to do any robotic heart surgery and any meaningful degree of minimally invasive heart surgery," he said of his time at Weill Cornell.

He then served from 2019 to 2022 as professor of surgery at Jefferson Health before joining the Northeast Georgia Health System earlier this month.

"One of the reasons I came here is I got the sense that my military service was very much valued," he said.

And while technology is an essential part of his practice, his wartime experiences are what form the core of his medical ethos.

"We've become so reliant on technology, but what really matters is that people care about the patient," he said. "If you have a group of people that care about the patient, you can really do a lot — even in a tent hospital."