Duke Health

When Luisa Scott found out her unborn daughter Zoey had a cleft lip and palate, she and her husband were uncertain where to seek care. Then, they met the Duke Health Cleft and Craniofacial team and felt confident in their choice to go to Duke. Now, one year after her cleft palate repair surgery, Zoey is happy and healthy. “I love Duke. I had the best experience there,” said Luisa.

Jessica Clarke was pregnant with her second child when she noticed a small lump in her breast. It grew larger while she waited a month for an ultrasound. After a surgical biopsy confirmed it was a malignant phyllodes tumor, Clarke and her family moved temporarily to Durham so she could have comprehensive cancer treatment and her baby at Duke Health. Today, Clarke is back home in Dallas; her prognosis is good, and her risk of local recurrence is low. “We made it through that,” she said. “We’ll make it through whatever comes next.”

When Bob Blake went to Duke Health for a kidney transplant evaluation, experts discovered blockages in his coronary arteries that put him at risk for a heart attack. Instead of traditional heart bypass surgery, Blake underwent minimally invasive coronary artery bypass grafting. After a quick recovery, Blake got his transplant. “We probably cut off months of delay that could have prevented him from being a kidney transplant candidate,” said Duke kidney transplant specialist Matthew Ellis, MD. “The sooner we get someone transplanted, the better they do.”