Italian Doctor Has Heart Attack Mid-Surgery



Surgeons are faced with many challenges, but one they don’t expect is having a heart attack themselves. That’s what happened to Italian surgeon Claudio Vitale of Naples. While performing surgery, the 59-year-old surgeon suffered an angina attack, but refused to abandon the operation to remove a brain tumor because he knew doing so would likely jeopardize the life of his patient. He agreed to undergo a blood test, which confirmed a heart problem. Approximately 30 minutes after finishing the surgery, Dr. Vitale had an angioplasty procedure himself. He made a full recovery and went back to work performing surgery on others.