Cardiothoracic Surgery

As a parent it’s natural to worry about your child’s well being, especially if they need heart surgery. We understand what you’re going through and we’re here to help. We are the only hospital in North Texas offering the complete range of surgical treatments for pediatric heart disease. We also offer support to help your entire family feel comfortable and prepared for what lies ahead. 

Why Children's Health℠?

Our large team of cardiac specialists and advance practice nurses has years of experience delivering expert surgical care, helping even the smallest and sickest children feel better. Our outcomes for highly complex heart defects, such as the Norwood procedure for hypoplastic left heart syndrome, are among the best in the country. 

As part of our commitment to making life better for children, we also offer special programs to help our patients and their families:

• Child life: Specialists with advanced training in helping children cope with illness and prepare for surgery. We’re happy to talk with your child’s siblings as well.
• Neurodevelopment clinic: A new program offering support and specialized services to children whose heart conditions place them at risk for neurodevelopment delays.
• Safe at Home: Offering information, training and round the clock access to heart experts, we help parents feel confident about caring for their children after surgery. 

Conditions We Treat

Expert Care

• Highly specialized team: From dedicated cardiac anesthesia doctors to experts in every type of heart condition, our team expertly tends to all your child’s needs. It’s not uncommon for our patients to receive care from 30 different specialists during their stay.
• Advanced ORs: With three dedicated operating rooms offering the best available technology, we can perform any procedure at any time without moving your child to a different area of the hospital.
• Latest imaging technology: Special audio-visual technology and large video screens in the operating room allow surgeons to view any imaging test or consult with experts in other parts of the hospital during your child’s procedure. This access to information helps us carry out procedures with extreme precision.
• Patient-friendly: We’re available to you. If you have questions or concerns at any point during your child’s hospital stay, a doctor or advanced practice nurse is always happy to talk with you.
• Expert ICU care: After surgery, your child recovers in our dedicated cardiac intensive care unit. 

Treatments

We expertly perform any type of heart surgery your child may need. Common procedures include:

• Arterial switch operation: removing the aorta and pulmonary arteries from their roots and reattaching them to opposite roots in children who have total anomalous pulmonary venous return
• Complete intracardiac repair: this procedure improves blood flow to the lungs and makes sure blood is flowing to the right places in children with tetralogy of Fallot
• Defect closure: placing small devices such as coils and plugs to close holes in the heart
• Heart transplant: replacing your child’s heart with a healthy donor heart
• Heart valve repair and replacement: fixing damaged or leaky heart valves by working with existing tissue to form a better seal or replacing a child’s own natural valve with a new one
• Staged reconstructive surgery: a series of three surgeries (Norwood operation, bi-directional Glenn procedure and Fontan procedure) to reshape the heart and improve blood flow in children with hypoplastic left heart syndrome
• Total artificial heart: replacing a diseased heart with a temporary man-made replacement heart (Syncardia) in children awaiting heart transplant surgery
• Ventricular Assist Device (VAD): placing tiny heart pumps in children with advanced heart failure who are awaiting a heart transplant surgery