Natasha Mazinani never imagined she would be in an operating room during robotic heart surgery.
Mazinani had just completed her first year at FIU Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine (FIU Medicine) when she found herself in an operating room at Baptist Health South Miami Hospital, watching Dr. Makoto Hashimoto and Dr. Tom C. Nguyen perform robotic heart surgery.
"When I walked into the room, I was a little nervous. I had never seen a robotic case before, so I didn't really know what to expect," Mazinani said. "I saw everyone preparing the patient, so I just took a moment to take it all in. It was mind-blowing for me, honestly."
The moment capped a journey that had begun only months earlier.
"I did not expect the inside of the heart to look like that when they put the cameras in and I was watching it happen on the screen," she said. "It was amazing."
