Le Bonheur leader wants Heart Institute to be ‘center of excellence’
“The legacy here is incredible,” Dr. Bret Mettler said. “Over the last 15 or 16 years, they’ve really developed from being kind of a sleepy little pediatric heart program that did good work into an exceptional, world-class pediatric heart program where they do all things congenital heart disease.” (Mark Weber/The Daily Memphian file)
Dr. Bret Mettler, chief of pediatric cardiac surgery and executive codirector of Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital’s Heart Institute, was called into the operating room recently to perform a life-saving surgery on a newborn baby.
“That child had been in our world for less than 12 hours, and we were in the operating room repairing their heart,” said Mettler, who specializes in the surgical repair of complex congenital heart disease, heart transplantation and mechanical circulatory support.
Such delicate procedures are not unusual at the Heart Institute where children less than a month old, or neonates, along with infants make up 30% of patients.
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Le Bonheur Children's Hospital Dr. Bret Mettler pediatric medicine UTHSC College of Medicine Subscriber OnlyAre you enjoying your subscription?
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Aisling Mäki
Aisling Mäki covers health care, banking and finance, technology and professions. After launching her career in news two decades ago, she worked in public relations for almost a decade before returning to journalism in 2022.
As a health care reporter, she’s collaborated with The Carter Center, earned awards from the Associated Press and Society of Professional Journalists and won a 2024 Tennessee Press Association first-place prize for her series on discrepancies in Shelby County life expectancy by ZIP code.
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