- I'm Mark Roeser. I'm a congenital heart surgeon here at UVA. I had [INAUDIBLE] flow when I was a baby, so I actually had heart surgery shortly before I was age 2. So my whole life I've kind of wanted to be a heart surgeon. I knew the whole spectrum of heart surgery from Norwood's to switches to [INAUDIBLE], also do adult congenital heart surgery. So anyone who is born with an abnormality of their heart I'll operate on regardless of their age. 

Our care philosophy at UVA is to really treat you like you're family. I have sons and daughters at home, and I treat every patient the same way like they're my own. So in the operating room, there's no rush. We only have one case scheduled a day, and that's for a reason. We want that case to go perfectly. It's a very intimate relationship when someone operates on your child. And we take that personally, and we really respect that. 

Almost everybody is real nervous about the scar or the incision on their chest. Growing up having heart surgery, I don't even notice my incision because as you grow up, if you have a scar on your chest, it kind of is part of your self-image. And there's really no limitations now for patients who have heart surgery. They really lead normal lifestyles after we fix the heart defect. 

The congenital heart team is really a team that takes care of the patients. All the cardiologists and us all meet every morning and talk about every patient. We have the same nurses in the OR, same nurses upstairs. Everybody's on the same page for every patient. We make sure everybody knows everything about your child, and your child will be treated like family here.