My transplant surgeon Dr. Loor and me before I left the hospital
When one of your transplant surgeons asks if you would speak at a conference, you don’t even need to think about it, you say yes. I was honored to be asked by Dr. Loor to share my story at the Bakken Symposium at the University of Minnesota.
The University of Minnesota’s Department of Surgery hosts an annual symposium to highlight critical information about cutting edge medical devices and therapies that surgeons and health care professionals need to stay up to date in their specialty.
Dr. Loor spoke about the breathing lung portable medical device that preserves lungs for transplantation made by TransMedics. If you clink on the link and click on “lung patients”, there is a great video with the full explanation of how it works.
Lungs are very fragile and difficult to transplant. Typically, you only have a four to six hour window to transplant lungs. This device they call “lungs in a box” will most likely change the lives of many waiting for life saving surgeries. It removes the short window of transport time and increases the travel radius for organs which in turn means more transplants performed.
They brought the device to the conference. It had a pair of swine lungs breathing being operated by nothing more than a battery. I was lucky to see this machine in action. It is fascinating to see lungs breathing outside the body. I have two words- medical technology.
I have included a couple of videos from a year ago which show how this machine works. The first video was done by University of Minnesota. The second video is from WCCO News, click on the link.
Nikki's New Lungs 
I love the post. This is very informational for patients. Thanks again for speaking at the 8 th annual Bakken Symposium. It was the highlight of the program!
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