Traditions
THE MIRIAM HOSPITAL • 2024
PAR EXCELLENCE: GROUNDBREAKING MEDICINE HELPS GET GOLFER BACK IN THE GAME
G
olf enthusiast Bruce Barton scored himself a hole-in-one recently. But it wasn’t on the links, it was at The Miriam Hospital.
walking, racquetball sports, and many other physical activities in addition to his beloved golf. Swinging into action Fortunately, he recalled a golfing buddy, also a cardiologist, mentioning a colleague who was conducting remarkable research with successful results in patients with issues in the lower extremities. Bruce learned that doctor was Peter A. Soukas, MD, Director of the Peripheral Vascular Interventional Laboratory at The Miriam.
For more than a decade, Bruce, a resident of Cape Cod and retired tool-die engineer, experienced debilitating pain and cramps in his legs, which often prevented him from walking further than 25 yards at a time. At best, he could get a hole or two in at the golf course where he worked part-time. Still, things were getting grim.
During his first exam with Dr. Soukas, Bruce was told he was suffering from critical limb ischemia (CLI), a severe blockage in the arteries of the lower extremities. The corrosion in Bruce’s veins brought on by this chronic condition was blocking blood flow through his legs.
After seven failed surgeries over the years, Bruce found himself at the end of the longest fairway of his life, one that he could Grateful patient, Bruce Barton (shown here barely walk down. His doctors at with his daughters and granddaughters) several Massachusetts hospitals is back to his healthy, active lifestyle were unable to alleviate the leg thanks to The Miriam Hospital. pain that plagued him. But it Healthwise, Bruce was in a bad was, perhaps, the final words of place . . . but at least he was in the his last Bay State doctor that hurt Bruce the most—he was right place now. “Dr. Soukas said I had a very tough, complex told they did their best, but it was unsuccessful. Adding case,” he recalls, “but he was also very encouraging and told insult to injury, it was also explained to Bruce that, as a me he was 100 percent sure he would make me better.” type 2 diabetic, he should prepare himself for the possibility Delivering on a promise of losing a toe, a foot, or maybe even a leg in the future.
I am in seventh heaven.”
That awful news rattled Bruce, but he wasn’t ready to head to the clubhouse for good just yet or give up on his selfdescribed “active, active, active” lifestyle, which included
How would Dr. Soukas deliver on such a promise? By “shocking” the plaque out of Bruce’s arteries using a new game-changing technology called Shockwave Intravascular (continued on page 2)