Mira’s Cardiac Intervention Team

Name: Aimee Armstrong
Titles: Assistant professor, Department of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases; pediatric interventional cardiologist, Pediatric Cardiac Catheterization Laboratory; pediatric cardiac intensivist, Pediatric Cardiothoracic Intensive Care Unit
Training: M.D., Northwestern University Medical School; pediatric residency, Indiana University’s Riley Hospital for Children; pediatric cardiology and pediatric interventional cardiology fellowships, University of Michigan
On confidence: “When you’re doing anything you haven’t done before or have done only a couple of times, it’s definitely anxiety-provoking, but the dynamics of our team are so outstanding that everyone had a very calm and confident air, even the first time. So while we — all of us — were anxious to some degree, we all knew our role on the team and that we were all there to help each other, and that we were each confident about our aspect of it.”

Name: Carlen Gomez Fifer
Titles: Associate professor, Department of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases;
director, Prenatal Heart Program and Fetal Cardiac Intervention Program
Training: M.D., Washington University; pediatric residency and pediatric cardiology fellowship, University of Michigan
On commitment: “It’s a huge team and you have to have all these people invested in what you’re doing. We’ve been able to do that here, and that’s why we’ve been successful.”

Name: Jill Mhyre
Titles: Assistant professor, Department of Anesthesiology; director of research, obstetric anesthesiology
Training: M.D., University of Michigan; fetal and maternal anesthesiology residency, University of Michigan
On the mom: “The obstetric anesthesia is important for ensuring the safety of the overall procedure. Our focus is primarily on the mom and making sure that she is safe and comfortable through the procedure, and that her outcome is optimal no matter what the baby’s outcome. We also help to optimize the baby’s outcome and the baby’s health during the surgery by ensuring that the mom is cared for as well as possible.”

Name: S. Devi Chiravuri
Title: Assistant professor, Department of Anesthesiology
Training: M.D., Northwestern University; fetal and maternal anesthesiology residency, Illinois Masonic Medical Center; pediatric anesthesiology fellowship, University of Michigan
On pioneering: “Very few centers do this. This is not something you study in medical school. It’s something I hadn’t even thought about up until a couple of years ago. There’s a learning curve, definitely, but I think with our team approach we are moving up that learning curve.”

Name: Marjorie C. Treadwell
Title: Professor, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology
Training: M.D., University of Michigan; obstetrics/gynecology residency and maternal-fetal medicine fellowship, Wayne State University
On collaboration: “One of the most impressive things about this team is the way we’re able to integrate and work together. To have team input from so many specialists is not a traditional approach.”

Name: Sarah Gelehrter
Title: Clinical assistant professor, Department of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases
Training: M.D., Harvard Medical School; pediatric residency, University of Michigan; pediatric cardiology fellowship, University of Michigan
On motivation: “Despite having close to 20 people in the room for a fetal intervention, things go calmly and smoothly and everyone really functions as a single unit. It’s the patients like Mira that really are the motivation for a team like ours. Getting to see Mira do well and be able to go home from the hospital so soon after delivery was extremely gratifying.”

Name: Cosmas J.M. van de Ven
Title: Professor, Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology; director, Division of Maternal Fetal Medicine
Training: M.D., University of Leiden; maternal-fetal medicine residency, Duke University
On team dynamics: “I think what stands out in this team is that none of the players has a personal agenda. We work together to educate the next generation of physicians and provide the best patient care possible.”

Name: Albert Rocchini
Titles: Professor, Department of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases, Division of Pediatric Cardiology; associate chair for clinical affairs, Department of Pediatrics and Communicable Diseases
Training: M.D., University of Pittsburgh; pediatric internship and residency, University of Minnesota; pediatric cardiology fellowship, Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Boston
On making a difference: “It has been a very gratifying to be part of a team that not only was able to initiate fetal cardiac interventions at the University of Michigan but more importantly to be able to make a significant difference in the life of Mira Larrison.”

Name: Jennifer Hirsch
Title: Assistant professor, Department of Surgery
Training: M.D., Harvard Medical School; general surgery and thoracic surgery residencies, and surgical critical care and pediatric cardiovascular surgery fellowships, University of Michigan
On the art of medicine: “There are not many protocols or literature out there on what is the best thing for these very complex kids. It takes more of the art of medicine to make the right plan. I think it’s very rare in medicine to find a group of clinicians as in the fetal intervention group who are so dedicated, very comfortable working with each other at a high level, and who really respect each other. I know for the Larrison’s that having Mira remain a member of their family means the world to them. That’s what pushes us on when it seems like the odds are not in our favor.”

Name: Anne Wuerth
Title: Certified pediatric nurse practitioner
Training: B.S.N., Mercy College, Detroit; M.S., nursing, University of Michigan
On the parents: “The fetal intervention cases are much more stressful for parents.  In those cases, they (the parents) need to have someone to make sure that they have and understand everything involved so they can find comfort in it all. As nurse practitioners, we have the ability to provide in-depth coordination of care for the whole family.”