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CNN Live Today

Interview with Dr. Sherri Shubin

Aired May 15, 2002 - 14:05   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Six month old twins, both conjoined, were separated in a 12-hour operation back in April. The girls, originally from Uganda, were brought to the University of Maryland Hospital. They're recovering there now.

Dr. Sherri Shubin was one of the first American doctors to see the girls and closely watch the effort to separate them.

Doctor, good afternoon to you.

DR. SHERRI SHUBIN, UNIV. OF MARYLAND MEDICAL CENTER: Good afternoon.

HEMMER: Just to be clear, you were not in the operating room at the time, correct?

SHUBIN: That's correct. I'm a general pediatrician.

HEMMER: But you were watching in on some sort of closed-circuit monitor?

SHUBIN: Yes.

HEMMER: Tell us what you observed during this?

SHUBIN: Well, when they brought them in to the operating room, it took many hours for the anesthesiologist to get them setup exactly the way they wanted them to be.

And then when the surgeons came in, they separated first the liver, and then they separated the vein that was connecting their hearts.

And then probably one of the hardest parts was closing them, to take the amount of skin that they had to close over their surgical wound.

HEMMER: Why was that such a difficult and delicate point? Is it the amount of skin that you're talking about?

SHUBIN: Exactly. Because the area where they were conjoined was not covered with skin, but when they separated them they had to make a closure, and they used a plastic patch to help them, but it was entirely skin over the top of the patch. HEMMER: You said something else interesting in your first answer. They had to carefully place them in order for the anesthesiologists to come in and do their work. Why is that so critical?

SHUBIN: Well, the way they were joined, they were facing each other on their sides, and most surgeries are done with the patient on their back. So it was very difficult for the anesthesiologists to get the access that they needed, and then to have them positioned so that the surgeons could do their job.

HEMMER: How common or uncommon is this?

SHUBIN: It's quite rare. I believe about 1 in every 200,000 live births.

HEMMER: Really? Wow.

SHUBIN: It's the only set I've seen.

HEMMER: How did it go?

SHUBIN: The surgery went much more smoothly than we were anticipating.

HEMMER: How are they doing today?

SHUBIN: They're doing wonderfully. They're still in the pediatric intensive care unit, but it's mostly for feeding issues, and we're tapering off their pain medicine.

HEMMER: We have some photos here. We showed them to our viewers. In a moment we're going to put them back up here to again show what happened before the conjoined twins were separated.

As we look at them, you mentioned how they're doing now. I've got to think they're parents are pretty concerned, too. Did you talk to them?

SHUBIN: Yes, I'm actually very close with their parents. I'm their general pediatrician, so I've been seeing them for their checkups since they've been in the United States.

HEMMER: Was there one point in the operation, doctor, that was the most critical, other than the two you just mentioned?

SHUBIN: I think probably when they tied off the vein that connects their hearts, we weren't sure what was going to happen when they did that. And so they tied it off and kind of stepped back, and the girls did great.

HEMMER: How risk would you say this procedure is?

SHUBIN: The surgeons were pretty confident that they would be able to get the girls through it. I think the most important part was doing enough studies before hand so that the surgeons knew as well as they could what they were facing when they went in.

HEMMER: How long before they're out of danger, would you say?

SHUBIN: I would say they're out of danger now.

HEMMER: Yes. How long before they could be effective released then?

SHUBIN: We're expecting them to go back to Uganda in November, most of that will be for rehabilitative therapy.

They'll probably be able to go back to the Ronald McDonald House sometime this month.

HEMMER: Is there a danger, going back to Uganda, just knowing how delicate this procedure is and knowing the medical care in this country far exceeds that in Uganda?

SHUBIN: Well, they will, of course, have the risks of any child growing up in a developing nation, and something that we're doing is trying to vaccinate them as much as we can, to have them be protected.

There is a pediatrician that we know relatively well who is near their village, and they're going to follow-up with them.

HEMMER: Christine and Loice Onziga, going back to Uganda, hopefully this fall.

Thank you, doctor, Dr. Sherri Shubin, our guest on what happened there with the conjoined twins.

Thank you much. Very interesting medical procedure.

SHUBIN: Thank you.

HEMMER: All right.

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