SynCardia Video Center: Patient Stories

Bob Phillips

  • Age: 73 (at implant)
  • Diagnosis: Acute MI and VSD rupture
  • Implant date: Sept. 7, 2012
  • Freedom® discharge date: Feb. 4, 2013
  • Status: Waiting for a matching donor heart at home
  • Hospital: Penn State Hershey Medical Center
  • Surgeon(s): Drs. Walter Pae and Edward Stephenson
When Bob Phillips left the hospital for his Palmyra home this week, he did so without a human heart. The 74-year-old became the first person in Pennsylvania and the oldest in the United States to go home with a Total Artificial Heart and a portable driver to power it, giving him the freedom to wait at home for a human heart transplant. Learn more about his story from Bob and two of his physicians.

Video Length - 4:14

*The Freedom® portable driver is CE approved for use in Europe and undergoing an FDA-approved Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) clinical study in the U.S.

CAUTION – The Freedom driver is an investigational device, limited by United States law to investigational use.

 
*The SynCardia temporary Total Artificial Heart was formerly known as the
SynCardia temporary CardioWest™ Total Artificial Heart.