Innovation Amid Despair: Restoring Hope and Time

by Ankit Bharat, Alyssa Curry (Illustrator)

Overview

As COVID-19 and its variants Delta, Lambda, and Mu plagued the world with an unimaginable period of death and despair, the world raced to innovate and save lives. Dr. Ankit Bharat, Chief Thoracic Surgeon, and his team worked to find solutions to combat this virus, fastidiously pioneering the double lung transplant procedure for COVID-19 patients with no other hope of survival—which has been adopted globally.

Innovation Amid Despair unveils heart-wrenching and awe-inspiring stories about the extraordinary crisis told by patients and their loved ones. These accounts display how innovation can be accomplished in the darkest, most desperate moments by genuinely caring about people—restoring hope and the need for time—to reconcile conflicts.

This prolific story spans many dimensions beyond medical discoveries, revealing damning consequences of political dividedness, conflicting narratives, and public distrust while illustrating the importance of mutual harmony and collaboration so that we are better prepared—for the next catastrophe.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781941711293
Publisher:	Seraph Books, LLC
Publication date:	11/11/2021
Pages:	286
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.64(d)

About the Author

Dr. Ankit Bharat is the Chief of Thoracic Surgery and the inaugural director of Lung Transplant and Lung Rescue Programs at Northwestern University- Northwestern Medicine in Chicago. He grew up in North India and then attended Christian Medical College, Vellore, India. He completed his general and cardiothoracic surgery training at Washington University in St Louis, USA. There, he was one of the first international medical graduates to be accepted in residency training and was mentored by surgical and scientific pioneers. During his cardiothoracic surgery training, he also worked at other institutions such as Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, MD Anderson in Houston, Toronto General Hospital in Canada, and Barcelona University Hospitals in Spain. Upon joining Northwestern University – Northwestern Medicine, he led the multidisciplinary team that started the lung transplant and lung rescue programs. He is the youngest chief of a surgical division in his department. As an attending cardiothoracic surgeon at Northwestern University, using minimally invasive or conventional surgical techniques, he treats patients with cancers of the lung and esophagus as well as non-cancerous diseases. Additionally, he performs lung transplantation and artificial mechanical support for lung failure. Dr. Bharat serves as a principal investigator for a lung research program funded by the National Institute of Health. He has published over 140 peer-reviewed scientific manuscripts and several book chapters. He serves on the editorial boards of scientific journals and is closely involved in the training of medical and research trainees at all levels in his clinics and research lab.

He served as one of the leaders of the coronavirus taskforce at his institution and has performed numerous procedures on actively infected COVID-19 patients. Most recently, he performed the first double lung transplants, as a life-saving treatment of last resort, for critically ill patients with COVID-19 associated severe lung failure in the United States. He and his team have helped other centers start lung transplantation for COVID-19 patients. Following the introduction of lung transplantation as a treatment option, it has been adopted at several institutions resulting in many lives saved. His family includes a younger brother who is in training to become a medical specialist and parents who are physicians still practicing in North India.