St. Joseph’s Hospital
After talking to Dr. Bremner of the phone, I felt compelled to come down to Phoenix and meet him in person. I am glad I did. While St. Joseph’s is a large 607 bed hospital – it’s just one of many large healthcare facilities in the Phoenix area. The same can not be said of their robust thoracic surgery program. They have a surprising range of thoracic surgery subspecialties, and sub-specialty programs including transplant, anti-reflux surgery, minimally invasive surgery, esophageal surgery program and robotic surgery. As you can imagine, I felt a bit like a kid in a candy store – so overwhelmed by the array of services, that my mind was just bursting with questions. (I rounded with the group and got to see the full spectrum of patients – including four recent post-transplant patients.) They also have a pediatric thoracic surgery program and plan to start a pediatric transplant program soon.
The head of the program, Dr. Ross Bremner is one of five thoracic surgeons at the Heart & Lung Institute of St. Joseph’s Hospital in Phoenix, Arizona which is currently the state’s largest thoracic surgery program. A native of Johannesburg, Dr. Bremner maintains international ties to his home country by staying active in the South African Cardiothoracic Surgery Society. He began his thoracic surgery career at University of Southern California (USC) where he met and recruited both Dr. Michael Smith, MD and Sandra Ogawa, ACNP.
As Arizona has grown, so has thoracic surgery. Despite the relatively small population of Arizona overall, both the esophageal surgery program and the lung transplant program maintain volumes that are competitive with the big-name east coast institutions.
With over 45 lung transplants last year – and the University of Arizona currently out of the running, Dr. Bremner* and his team are set to boost those numbers this year. They have already done ten transplants here in the first quarter of 2012, and anticipate doing fifty to sixty this year. (If you remember from our previous posts about lung transplantation – even very large institutions are not doing huge numbers of transplants. In fact, you can check the numbers at the Organ Procurement and Transplant Network if you’re interested*.)
St. Joseph’s also has an esophageal surgery program which maintains the high volumes of esophagectomies needed for optimal outcomes. Dr. Bremner reports that they perform on average 50 – 60 esophagectomies for esophageal cancer ever year in addition to their benign esophageal surgery program. (As we discussed with Dr. Molena, ‘benign’ is a bit of a misnomer for esophageal conditions since achalasia, esophageal strictures and other non-cancerous conditions of the esophagus may have a huge negative impact on the individual’s quality of life.)
The Heart & Lung Institute also offers training courses for surgeons and residents in minimally invasive surgery – in fact, they are teaching a course the weekend of my visit.
As a practicing surgeon in Phoenix, Arizona, Dr. Bremner also sees numerous cases of Coccidoidomycosis** (or Valley Fever) which is endemic to this area of the country. In fact, Maricopa county, which encompasses the city of Phoenix sees more cases annually than the California valley the disease was originally named for.
* At the site, you can create data reports by organ, region, outcome, waiting period, etc.. For example – using this data table – we can see that there were a total 1,516 isolated lung transplants in the United States in 2011 which is actually a decrease from 2010 and 2009.
** Readers can anticipate a future article on this topic
More about Dr. Ross Bremner, MD, PhD
Dr. Bremner is a genial gentleman and a ready conversationalist. Our interview was relaxed, but informative. He welcomed my questions on a variety of topics and was generous with his time. In fact, I had ready access to multiple members of his team, and spent the entire afternoon with the department of thoracic surgery. It was an engaging afternoon, and highlighted one of the reasons I pursue interviews and opportunities to speak to my colleagues within thoracics; it was an opportunity to learn more about the specialty, and the care of thoracic surgery patients.
Dr. Bremner is a board-certified thoracic surgeon. After obtaining his baccalaureate degree and medical school training at Witwatersrand University in South Africa, he continued his education in the United States.
He completed his general surgery residency, PhD research and thoracic surgery residency at the University of Southern California. He was the Director of the Hastings Thoracic Oncology Research Laboratory on the USC campus. At this lab, surgeons along with researchers from multiple disciplines conduct research on the diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer including research in gene therapies prior to coming to Arizona.
He has several YouTube videos talking about his current research projects at St. Joseph’s.
He also has an informational series for patients about Lung Transplant over at EmpowHer.com
Dr. Ross M. Bremner, MD, PhD
Chief of Thoracic Surgery
Chair of the Center for Thoracic Disease & Transplantation
Heart & Lung Institute – St. Joseph’s Hospital and Medical Center
500 W. Thomas Road, Suite 500
Phoenix, Arizona 85013
Tele: (602) 406 4000
Fax: (602) 406 3090
Selected publications (not a full listing)
Jacobs JV, Hodges TN, Bremner RM, Walia R, Huang J, Smith MA. (2011). Hardware preservation after sternal wound infection in a lung transplant recipient. Ann Thorac Surg. 2011 Aug;92(2):718-20. [no free text available].
Felton VM, Inge LJ, Willis BC, Bremner RM, Smith MA. (2011). Immunosuppression-induced bronchial epithelial-mesenchymal transition: a potential contributor to obliterative bronchiolitis. J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 2011 Feb;141(2):523-30. [no free text available].
Gotway MB, Conomos PJ, Bremner RM. (2011) Pleural metastatic disease from glioblastoma multiforme. J Thorac Imaging. 2011 May;26(2):W54-8. [no free text available].
Coon KD, Inge LJ, Swetel K, Felton V, Stafford P, Bremner RM. (2010). Genomic characterization of the inflammatory response initiated by surgical intervention and the effect of perioperative cyclooxygenase 2 blockade. J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 2010 May;139(5):1253-60, 1260.e1-2. [no free text available].
Wu C, Hao H, Li L, Zhou X, Guo Z, Zhang L, Zhang X, Zhong W, Guo H, Bremner RM, Lin P. (2009). Preliminary investigation of the clinical significance of detecting circulating tumor cells enriched from lung cancer patients. J Thorac Oncol. 2009 Jan;4(1):30-6. [no free full-text available].
Backhus LM, Bremner RM. (2006). Images in clinical medicine. Intrathoracic splenosis after remote trauma. N Engl J Med. 2006 Oct 26;355(17):1811.
Backhus LM, Sievers E, Lin GY, Castanos R, Bart RD, Starnes VA, Bremner RM. (2006). Perioperative cyclooxygenase 2 inhibition to reduce tumor cell adhesion and metastatic potential of circulating tumor cells in non-small cell lung cancer. J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 2006 Aug;132(2):297-303. [no free full-text available].
Backhus LM, Sievers EM, Schenkel FA, Barr ML, Cohen RG, Smith MA, Starnes VA, Bremner RM. (2005). Pleural space problems after living lobar transplantation. J Heart Lung Transplant. 2005 Dec;24(12):2086-90. [no free text available].
Backhus LM, Petasis NA, Uddin J, Schönthal AH, Bart RD, Lin Y, Starnes VA, Bremner RM. (2005). Dimethyl celecoxib as a novel non-cyclooxygenase 2 therapy in the treatment of non-small cell lung cancer. J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 2005 Nov;130(5):1406-12. [no free full-text available].
Sievers EM, Bart RD, Backhus LM, Lin Y, Starnes M, Castanos R, Starnes VA, Bremner RM. (2005). Evaluation of cyclooxygenase-2 inhibition in an orthotopic murine model of lung cancer for dose-dependent effect. J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 2005 Jun;129(6):1242-9. [no free full-text available].
Bowdish ME, Barr ML, Schenkel FA, Woo MS, Bremner RM, Horn MV, Baker CJ, Barbers RG, Wells WJ, Starnes VA. (2004). A decade of living lobar lung transplantation: perioperative complications after 253 donor lobectomies. Am J Transplant. 2004 Aug;4(8):1283-8. [no free full-text available].
Starnes VA, Bowdish ME, Woo MS, Barbers RG, Schenkel FA, Horn MV, Pessotto R, Sievers EM, Baker CJ, Cohen RG, Bremner RM, Wells WJ, Barr ML. (2004). A decade of living lobar lung transplantation: recipient outcomes. J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 2004 Jan;127(1):114-22. [no free full-text available].
Haddy SM, Bremner RM, Moore-Jefferies EW, Thangathurai D, Schenkel FA, Barr ML, Starnes VA. (2002). Hyperinflation resulting in hemodynamic collapse following living donor lobar transplantation. Anesthesiology. 2002 Nov;97(5):1315-7.
DiPerna CA, Bowdish ME, Weaver FA, Bremner RM, Jabbour N, Skinner D, Menendez LR, Hood DB, Rowe VL, Katz S, Kohl R. (2002). Concomitant vascular procedures for malignancies with vascular invasion. Arch Surg. 2002 Aug;137(8):901-6; discussion 906-7.
Bremner RM, Hoeft SF, Costantini M, Crookes PF, Bremner CG, DeMeester TR. (1993). Pharyngeal swallowing. The major factor in clearance of esophageal reflux episodes. Ann Surg. 1993 Sep;218(3):364-9; discussion 369-70.
Thoracic Surgery 