Baptist’s heart, lung transplant program marks 25 years of saving, improving lives

Lifestyle feature for The Commercial Appeal

Nov. 21, 2010

Brad Bradshaw “died” three times and can recall one of them.

On the day he was discharged from the hospital after his heart transplant, something went wrong with fluid build-up in his chest, and he was “going downhill quickly,” he recalls. Typically, there would have been a nurse by his side 24 hours a day, but for whatever reason, there wasn’t one nearby this time. There was, however, a physician with the surgical team standing just outside his room.

“They ran in, sliced me open and brought me back,” Bradshaw, 58, said. “That was quite an experience.”

Despite downplaying this instant of his life, Bradshaw still refers to his heart transplant four years ago at Baptist Memorial Hospital-Memphis as “a miracle.”

The heart and lung transplant program at Baptist Memorial Hospital has seen 287 heart and 87 lung transplants since its inception in 1985. Celebrating its 25th year this year, it is the only such heart transplant program in the city and the only lung program in West Tennessee, Arkansas and Mississippi … (read more)