"When an eleven-month-old infant is lying on the operating table in front of you, it's a different challenge psychologically than with a 60-year-old patient," says Dr. Fabio Ius. "Children still have their whole lives ahead of them!" Dr. Ius heads Intermediate Care Ward 12 and, together with Dr. Salman Jawad, has been in charge of the heart and lung transplant program at the Clinical Department of Cardiothoracic, Transplantation and Vascular Surgery since 2020. "The techniques cannot be transferred one-to-one from adults to children. The bronchi and vessels are smaller and the cannulas for the ventilators are much narrower," explains the specialist in cardiac surgery, who came to Hanover from Italy in 2010 to learn about heart and lung transplantation. The special thing about the MHH is the excellent cooperation: starting with his own Department, including Dr. Alexander Horke, Dr. Murat Avsar and Dr. Dmitri Bobylev, the team from Pediatric Pneumology, Allergology and Neonatology led by associate professor Dr. Nikolaus Schwerk, Nursing on wards 63 and 67, the cardio technicians, the operating theatre staff and many more. "We function as one body. It's really fun!" says Dr. Ius. The interdisciplinary team transplanted lungs into eleven children in 2020, including one infant. "We are the only Transplant Centre in Germany to have performed a heart-lung transplant on a child in the past year and to treat
patients under the age of twelve," says the father of three
, who feels at home in Hanover after ten years.