Grammar Gazette_Issue1_2025

Life-changing moments An inspiring tale of toads, a teenager and second chances

What followed was a tale of both good and bad fortune, as the surgeon detailed the story of a teenage girl who was ‘unlucky to have heart failure; lucky to get a new one’; a girl who, while waiting for a donor heart, returned to school with a mechanical pump attached to her heart, powered by batteries tucked into her blazer pocket. ‘According to her parents she was extremely popular for emergency phone recharging using her heart pump batteries, which were super-fast,’ Emily told the assembly. Within months a donor heart became available (the average wait is around six months). The operation lasted six hours and the following night the young girl was texting her friends. Within six weeks she was back at school, starting life anew. It was a story of hope, and sadness, overlaid with awe at the dedicated specialists such as Emily who every day stand on the shoulders of giants to save lives and pioneer new methods to save even more into the future. The surgeon paid tribute not only to the incredible generosity in grief of the anonymous donor family—who changed more than one life with a multiple organ donation—but to the team and the institution that affords her the ‘privilege’ of giving others a second chance. The Grammar Woman is one of five transplant surgeons at Sydney’s St Vincent’s hospital, the fourth-largest transplant hospital in the world, and has completed more than 350 heart and lung transplants. In 2014 she was part of the surgical team that made an international breakthrough, becoming the first in the world to

‘It probably started in E Block biology classes, dissecting a toad.’

Surgeon Dr Emily Granger (Head Girl, 1991) returned to Brisbane Girls Grammar in March to demonstrate that not only is she a trailblazing cardiothoracic transplant specialist and inspirational Grammar Woman— she’s also a great storyteller. As special guest speaker at the 150 Year Foundation Day assembly, Emily recounted her path to the operating theatre, via some early amphibian surgery, and paid tribute to a School that always encouraged her to ‘question, enquire, think outside the box’. Urging students to chase their dreams, she shared an insight into her world, inviting the assembly to ride along with her on the journey of a real heart transplant she performed. ‘We start with a girl, not too different to everyone sitting here today in the auditorium. She’s 15, plays netball for her school, loves debating, reads every book she can get a hold of and …has no idea that she carries a genetic mutation that leads to heart failure at a young age,’ she began.

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perform a successful heart transplant using an organ retrieved from a donor after circulatory death (known as a DCD transplant). The procedure, which allows hearts that have stopped beating to be flushed and resuscitated for use in transplants, significantly widens the potential donor pool, allowing many more lives to be saved. Since that pioneering operation in 2014, St Vincent’s has performed more than 74 DCD transplants on patients who may otherwise have died waiting for a live-donor pathway. These kinds of breakthroughs were only possible because of the type of hospital St Vincent’s is, Emily said. ‘A hospital dedicated to service; a hospital that believes in teaching, education, research, being a leader and a pioneer. A hospital that recognises ability, hard work and dedication.’ A hospital, she said, that exemplified the values she had found as a teenager at Brisbane Girls Grammar School. To current students she said: ‘There are possibilities, opportunities, support systems, mentors, coaches and facilities available to you. Chase your dreams, develop your potential, start your own story.’

Captions 1 1991 Head Girls Rebecca Conoplia and Emily Granger 2 Transplant surgeon Dr Emily Granger

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28 | GAZETTE • ISSUE 1, 2025

Brisbane Girls Grammar School