PHYSICIAN COUPLE ENJOYS TEAMWORK OF HEART SURGERY

CAPE GIRARDEAU -- Two and a half years ago, they stood together in a wedding aisle. Today they stand shoulder to shoulder over an operating table to help people with failing hearts.

Drs. Louis and Bridget Ostrow, husband and wife, work together on the open heart surgery team at St. Francis Medical Center.

The team conducted its first open heart procedure at the hospital last week. Earlier this week, the team completed its third procedure.

As director of the program, Louis Ostrow performs the heart surgery; nearby, wife Bridget, a vascular surgeon, operates on the patient's blood vessels. When necessary, they also help out each other with their tasks.

The couple moved to Cape Girardeau in mid-February from Southern California, where they first worked together on the surgical staff at Eisenhower Medical Center in Rancho Mirage. Louis Ostrow said they lived there seven months after he completed an additional eight years of post-medical school training.

Bridget Ostrow has worked as a vascular surgeon for four years, following six years of additional training beyond medical school.

A native of the St. Louis suburb of Creve Coeur, Bridget Ostrow met her husband, who hails from Philadelphia, about three years ago at a medical meeting in California.

She is one of not more than 25 women in the United States who are certified vascular surgeons, her husband said.

Being married to a co-worker in the highly stressful discipline of surgical medicine isn't a tough arrangement, Louis Ostrow, 33, said.

"It's actually one of the only ways we get to see each other when we're busy," he said. "It's worked out pretty well to this point."

Bridget Ostrow, 36, said she and her husband's arrangement doesn't differ from the partnerships of any other two physicians. She said that distinct lines separate their patients. Even if she doesn't agree with her husband about a patient, she said, she keeps to herself.

"In the operating room it's easy to make that line of distinction. He takes care of his patients and I take care of mine and that's it."

But the partnership of husband and wife is also there. That can't be removed completely, Louis Ostrow said, adding that he doesn't believe he would want to remove it.

"I can't say how we divide it, he said. "There's some sort of affection between each other whether we're in scrubs or not."

He said it would be hard to put a number on how many open heart procedures he and his wife have done together. All he would say is that the number came to "a lot."

Away from the job, Bridget Ostrow said, she and her husband don't spend much time talking about work. Sometimes they may discuss a couple of work-related matters, but not often.

She added: "We don't have a problem where we've said, `We're not going to talk about work.'"

Rather, they spend time with their 1-year-old daughter, Anne, she said, and find enjoyment in outdoor activities like hiking and biking. Right now a lot of their free time is also being put towards making a life for themselves in Cape Girardeau.

She said she likes Cape Girardeau and called the people here "warm."

"We're happy to be here and we're excited about the (open heart) program, and we think it's going to do well," she said.