The Purpose of the Tell-Tale Hearts Section of PerfusionTheory.com By Gary Grist RN CCP Emeritus

PerfusionTheory.com was always intended to be a free educational web site where I could share theories, science, methods and history from my perfusion career experience and the experience of others for the benefit of the ECLS community at large. However, one of the contributors to this site thought there was something lacking; the humanity of working in perfusion either as a perfusionist or an ECMO Specialist. He wrote; “I am afraid that years of experience sometimes conditions the soul to ‘keep tight with your tears’.”   He also said; “You really need to post more and seriously rethink the format of Perfusion Theory to include more personal stories along with the glorious science.  Eating just soup everyday becomes boring.”

He is absolutely correct.  Practical education is good for the brain, but human stories are good for the soul. The reason we desire to be educated is so that we can help people. Patient survival and quality of life is what’s important.  So, I decided to initiate this section to include stories about compassion, success, failure, heartbreak, happiness, life, death and (hopefully) humor; in other words, the humanity of our chosen profession.

So if you have a tale to tell from your heart, send me your story and I will post it here to share with the entire world. This site gets readers from all four corners of the earth.  I will guarantee anonymity if you so wish.