Just after he was born, Daniel was diagnosed with serious congenital heart defects and underwent a number of difficult emergency procedures. The experience was terrifying for his mother, Mary. She had tremendous confidence in Daniel' s heart surgeon and knew his heart would be repaired, but to think of her son possibly suffering brain damage on top of all that was more that she could bear. She was scared to death.
It was two days later when Dr. Jorge Guerrero, a pediatric cardiothoracic anesthesiologist with Pediatric Anesthesia Consultants of San Antonio at Methodist Children' s Hospital of South Texas, who provided anesthesia services to Daniel, told Mary that Daniel would be fine.
“It made a world of difference to us. I trusted Dr. Guerrero. He knows what he' s doing and I knew he wouldn' t say if it weren' t true. Thanks to him I know my child does not have brain damage,” says Mary.
Since Daniel' s two major heart surgeries, Mary has a deep appreciation for the role of pediatric anesthesiologists like Dr. Guerrero, and never expected how he would continue to care for her son outside the operating room.
“Dr. Guerrero was always there. He was always checking on us, making sure Daniel wasn' t in pain. He always made me feel like I could take my time asking questions and he took his time to explain things. It' s not what you' d expect—you think he' d be too busy to care but he never made us feel that way,” Mary says.
“Dr. Guerrero cared about my son, but he was treating us, too.”