UHealth Comprehensive Aortic Program Provides Complex Aortic Procedures Jean Panneton, M.D., is Co-Director of UHealth’s Comprehensive Aortic Program, part of the University of Miami Health System. For more information on UHealth’s Comprehensive Aortic Program, click here, call 305-243-0783 o r visit the UHealth Collective. MEET RED GONZALEZ Red Gonzalez’s life changed in an instant when he suffered severe sudden back pain. “It started building up really quick. And it got my attention when I couldn’t feel my legs,” Red says. Red suffered an aortic dissection and called 911. Jean Panneton, M.D., an internationally renowned vascular surgeon at UHealth, part of the University of Miami Health System, says the aorta provides circulation to the entire body. “It’s the most important organ of the body because it’s like the water main of the house. Aortic dissection is when your blood pressure gets too high or maybe you’re born with some anomaly in how your aortic wall is built and it tears. When it dilates too much, it becomes a large aneurysm and then it can rupture. A delay in diagnosis and a delay in treatment can be lethal,” says Dr. Panneton. Dr. Panneton brings his 30 plus years of experience to UHealth as the Co-Director of the new Comprehensive Aortic Program. The mission is to bring highly specialized aortic procedures to South Florida and the Americas. “It’s a whole team effort of different specialists that are really dedicated to providing compassionate excellence care for aortic patients,” Dr. Panneton says. The UHealth Comprehenisve Aortic Program provides a patient-centered multidisciplinary approach. “Mostly it tends to be cardiac surgery, vascular surgery, structural heart cardiologists as well. You need cardiovascular anesthesia, you need specialized cardiovascular critical care as well, because it’s not just doing the procedure, but it’s really planning it, having the proper imaging to plan it, and then taking care of those patients in the ICU postoperatively,” says Dr. Panneton. “He went through there and fixed my upper heart. Got my circulation going. And I can feel it,” Red says. Dr. Panneton performed a complex thoracic aortic repair. Red has one more surgery to go and says he is ready! “This is my birthday present right here. Let it go and trust technologyand trust your doctors,” says Red. ...read more read less