Houston Methodist Hospital is slated to close its suite of Fondren-Brown operating rooms in August after nearly 50 years as part of a relocation initiative. The ORs were the site of some of the world's first developments in heart surgery, according to the Houston Chronicle.
Officials plan to close the ORs as the hospital's Heart Center moves into the $697 million Paula and Joseph C. "Rusty" Walter III Tower, which is scheduled to open next month, according to the report.
Houston Methodist Hospital told Click 2 Houston surgeons Michael DeBakey, MD, and George Noon, MD, "performed the world's first multiorgan transplant, the first coronary artery bypass, the first Dacron graft procedures after Dr. DeBakey sewed the first one on his wife's sewing machine," and other groundbreaking procedures.
"The Fondren-Brown OR served as an incubator for innovation and firsts in heart surgery for nearly 50 years," Michael Reardon, MD, the Allison Family Distinguished Chair of Cardiovascular Research in Methodist Hospital's department of cardiovascular surgery whose time in the operating room dates back to 1975, told the Houston Chronicle.
"Although the doors are closing, the culture ... will transition into the new Walter Tower where high-tech surgical equipment, bigger operating rooms and advanced imaging will help us continue to push the frontiers of minimally-invasive care of cardiovascular disease," he added.