84 CHICAGO | SEPTEMBER 2019
Immediately the procurement team begins
making arrangements to retrieve the organ — book-
ing slots in operating rooms at both hospitals and
scheduling transportation. For the latter, Bucio
turns to a contractor with a variety of aircraft
waiting in a dedicated corner of Midway Airport.
Depending on the distance, the trip may require a
jet , prop pla ne, or hel icopter. I n t h is ca se, because
the donor was within driving distance (UChicago
Medicine asked that a specific location not be
mentioned out of privacy concerns for the donor’s
family), it meant three Chevrolet Suburbans.
After hearing back from all the
surgeons, Bucio called the attending
physician with the news: “Tell Daru
it’s time.”
Smith in turn knocked on Daru’s
ICU door, wearing a smile as he stepped
inside. “You ready?”
“For what?”
“Are you ready?” Smith repeated.
Now Daru smiled, too.
“You’re not excited?” the cardiolo-
gist asked. “I thought you’d be jumping
for joy.”
“I’m definitely excited,” Daru said.
“Just not surprised.”
“Why not?”
“I called God out. I told him I needed
my organs by the end of this week.”
“A l l r ig ht , t hen,” h is doc tor sa id w it h
a laugh. “Let’s do this.”AT A GLANCE, OPERATING ROOM
5 West in UChicago Medicine’s Center
for Care and Discovery is unremark-
able. One of many similarly configured
ORs, it sits at the end of a labyrinth of
hallways on the sixth floor, filled with
the most sophisticated medical equip-
ment in t he world. Gia nt wheels of l ig ht ,
attached to metal stanchions, flare onto
the operating table, creating a center
stage spotlight. On one wall, lines of
red, yellow, and green blip across an
enormous screen, each representing a
different vital sign.
On most days, the immaculately
clean white-tiled hallway just outside
is deserted, save for the occasional
appearance of a f lock of surgeons,
nurses, and orderlies, who enter, mur-
muring, the OR through a pair of double doors set in motion by the touch
of a wall switch.
On this day, however — December 19, at a little before 3 in the after-
noon — an unusually large contingent of 20 medical staff members milled
about. The star of the show was the hospital’s head cardiac surgeon,
Valluvan Jeevanandam. He’d be performing Daru’s heart transplant, the
initial procedure upon which the rest of the undertaking rested.
Tall, lanky, and quick to smile, with threads of silver in his dark
hair and the tapered fingers of classical pianist (or a heart surgeon),
Jeevanandam was the ideal first baton carrier in a procedure that’s very
much like a relay race: He handled the heart portion of the first success-
ful triple transplant back in 1999. He was 39 at the time, a prodigy. Born
in southern India, he had come to America as a young boy in a hurry. He
skipped fifth grade, finished high school in three years, started college
at 15, and graduated summa cum laude from Columbia University at- He had taken part in the other three triple transplants of this kind
that UChicago Medicine had performed, too — in 2001, 2003, and 2011.
Daru Smith and
Sarah McPharlin
in July, seven
months after their
transplants. “I feel
better than I have
in years,” says
Sarah. “A million
times better.”