Charlene Blake, MD, PhD, Member of First All-Woman Team to Perform a Heart Transplant at UCSF

This December, Charlene Blake, MD, PhD, was working in the OR as she would on any other clinical day. A cardiac anesthesiologist, she was assigned to manage a heart transplant case. It was only after the 5-hour case had ended, that Blake, surgeon Dr. Amy Fiedler, perfusionist Ashley Risso, and other members of the OR team realized that there were no men present in the room. This was the first heart transplant performed by an all-woman team at UCSF – and possibly anywhere. 

Read more about this historic milestone in the SF Chronicle. You can also learn more about this story on Today.com, and watch the interview on CBS!