GYEONGGI-DO

Cardio∙Neuro∙Vascular Center of Shihwa Hospital:

The Rising Star in Heart Surgery in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea

From Pediatrics to Adults, Heart Surgery for All Ages

 

 

Shihwa Hospital is a hospital that can perform heart surgery. It can provide specialized diagnosis and surgery for all age groups, from children to adults. The hospital actively supports medically vulnerable groups, including foreign patients.

 

Located in Siheung, Gyeonggi Province, Shihwa Hospital has established itself as an advanced medical institution in the region. Over the past few years, the hospital has continuously strengthened its capabilities in heart surgery by augmenting cutting-edge medical equipment and assembling a team of highly skilled medical professionals in the Cardio∙Neuro∙Vascular Center. This ongoing effort ensures that patients and their families can trust and rely on Shihwa Hospital for cardiac treatment.

 

A 23-year-old woman from Myanmar had been experiencing frequent fainting spells and chest pains. Despite feeling something was wrong with her body, she could not receive appropriate medical care due to poor medical infrastructure and financial difficulties. Through the foreign patient support project of the International Healthcare Center, she was connected with Shihwa Hospital. The hospital offered to cover all expenses related to medical tests, surgery, hospitalization, and interpretation services.

 

The patient arrived in June 2022 and underwent a thorough examination, which revealed a diagnosis of atrial septal defect (ASD), a type of congenital heart disease. There was a hole in the wall between the left and right atria, causing blood to leak. During the examination, a backflow condition was found between the right atrium and right ventricle, making surgery unavoidable. Eventually, under the direction of the director, Dr. Hyung-Tae Sim, of the Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery Center of Shihwa Hospital, the patient underwent both atrial septal defect (ASD) closure and tricuspid valve repair surgery. The five-hour surgery was successfully completed, and the patient recovered stably and was discharged.

 

 

It was announced that the first pediatric cardiac surgery was successfully performed at Shihwa Hospital in April for a Ugandan child with congenital heart disease.  The patient, Elisha (9 years old, male), frequently experienced shortness of breath and tightness in the chest during physical activity, and was diagnosed with congenital valve disease. However, due to economic circumstances and poor medical conditions in Uganda, surgery was impossible. In the meantime, the Mentoris Foundation requested cardiac surgery through the Shihwa Hospital International Healthcare Center for Dr. Hyung-Tae Sim, the director of the Cardiac and Vascular Surgery Center.

 

Dr. Sim immediately gathered a team of cardiac surgeons at Shihwa Hospital and established a treatment plan. The team decided to perform a "mitral valve replacement (MVR)," but during the examination, they discovered additional tricuspid valve regurgitation and successfully performed "tricuspid valve repair surgery" along with the initial procedure, which took about 5 hours to complete. Elisha has been discharged from the hospital after only seven days

 

Plans are underway to establish a hybrid operating room within the year. It is a complex treatment system capable of both interventional procedures and surgical operations for the heart and systemic blood vessels. Recently, there has been a trend of increasing need for collaborative treatment between non-invasive and surgical treatments in patients. With a hybrid operating room where multiple medical departments can perform surgery and interventional procedures on a single patient, both the quality of treatment and patient satisfaction can be increased.

 

CEO Choi emphasized, "We will provide the highest level of medical services to the point where we can naturally associate heart surgery with our hospital. We will continue to build our infrastructure for cardiovascular disease treatment by recruiting highly experienced medical professionals and introducing state-of-the-art medical equipment so that we can play our role as a local hub hospital that values the lives of our patients. "

 

HOMEPAGE: https://www.shhosp.co.kr/en/