Arkansas Children's Hospital and its pediatric cardiac surgery team again made national television in December.

The Discovery Channel's new show, "Surgery Saved My Life," featured a December episode, "Train-wreck Heart," with Dr. Jake Jaquiss, Dr. Elizabeth Frazier and Allison Lowery, a 17-year old patient in Alexander. Lowery is the daughter of Dr. and Mrs. John Lowery.

The procedure on a congenital heart problem took nearly six hours to perform.
"They had been searching for interesting cases," said Kurt Sayenga, who wrote, directed and produced the show for Discovery. "They had been looking for something, these very personal, very emotional stories. And with interesting patients and interesting surgeons."

But Sayenga said this show is different from the other healthcare shows that appear on Discovery.

"We spend more time with the surgeon, trying to get to know them," he said. "And when you watch the show, you'll see that Dr. Jake is very relaxed and has a very wry sense of humor."

Sayenga described the process of how Lowery and Children's made it on national television.

"We had sent out a note to all the children's hospitals to contact us if they ever had a case that they thought was interesting," he said. "And that's what happened. Tom Bonner (who works for Children's) contacted us and (Allison) found out a day before we found out. The very nature of the show makes for a quick turnaround time. The patient finds out, then we find out, and we have cameras there the next day. The other thing about this show is that it doesn't look or feel like a television show. We use movie-quality gear to shoot these and it has more of a big-budget look."

The show also featured Dr. Chuck Frazier, chief of pediatric cardiac surgery at the DeBakey Heart Center at Texas Children's Hospital.

Children's and the late Dr. Jonathan Drummond-Webb were the subjects of a 2002 documentary series that aired nationally on ABC.



February 2007