Who is in the operating room during surgery?

During heart surgery, a highly trained group works as a team. Here is a list of people who will be in the operating room during surgery.

• The cardiovascular surgeon, who heads up the surgery team and performs the key parts of the surgery.
• The assisting surgeons, who follow the direction of the cardiovascular surgeon.
• The cardiovascular anesthesiologist, who gives you the medicines that make you sleep during the surgery (called anesthesia). The anesthesiologist makes sure that you get the right amount of medicines throughout the surgery and monitors the ventilator, which breathes for you during surgery.
• The perfusion technologist, who runs the heart-lung machine.
• The cardiovascular nurses, who are specially trained to assist in heart surgery.