As with other heart surgery programs around the country that have only one surgeon, there are times, such as weekends, meetings and vacations, when the heart surgeon leaves the community. During those times, Dr. Bjorgaard has received the full support of the Starr Wood Cardiac management team and a fully trained board certified cardiac surgeon would come to Minot for coverage. I have been responsible for essentially all of that coverage over the last three years, with the exception of two episodes. This consisted of one episode of seven days and one episode of six days. The program does not consist of rotating surgeons.
Trinity probably provides some time off for their surgeon.
During that time I would suspect that he has a covering surgeon. Dr. Bjorgaard was and will be our permanent resident cardiac surgeon until such time as the program terminates, if it does. We are pleased with the outstanding results and the superb patient-physician relationships that Dr. Bjorgaard has developed. We support his practice with an equally outstanding group of physicians and are very comfortable with the record of excellent outcomes that we have produced in conjunction with Dr. Bjorgaard, our Minot surgeon. In an article under the heading of Briefly March 7.