On one of my very first nights as a fully independent cardiothoracic surgeon, I was handed a case no one ever forgets: a five-year-old boy pulled from a devastating car crash, barely alive and fading fast. His tiny chest rose in shallow, frantic breaths as machines screamed warnings around us. Within minutes, I was told what no young doctor wants to hear — possible cardiac injury. Hours later, after opening his chest and repairing life-threatening damage to his heart and aorta, we stabilized him against the odds. I walked out of that operating room shaking, knowing that if he had...
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