Bridged by Holistic Care

Photo of Ron Baldwin's St. Peter's Health care team: Cardiac and Pulmonary Rehab -

Doug Wandke, Courtney Brink, Mary Smith; Ron Baldwin; Dr. Katrina Maher, Family Medicine and Dr. Liz Holper, Interventional Cardiology

Ron Baldwin didn’t think of himself as a cardiac patient. In fact, until recently, he’d never been admitted to a hospital at all.

Ron’s story began February 2022 when he was approaching his 65th birthday. Like many, he needed to get established with a primary care provider in order to enroll in Medicare. He admits he hadn’t been as consistent about primary care as he should have been, so he was genuinely pleased to start fresh.

That decision turned out to be life changing.

During his initial exam, his new primary care physician, Dr. Katrina Maher, listened carefully to his heart. Ron mentioned that he’d been told since childhood that he had a murmur, something doctors had always described as benign. He’d lived an active life, hiking, backpacking, hunting, pushing his body in short bursts rather than endurance sports. He’d always assumed the occasional shortness of breath was just a lack of training.

But Dr. Maher wasn’t convinced.

She told him plainly that what she was hearing wasn’t routine, and that they needed to look more closely. She referred him to cardiology, beginning a process of monitoring that would stretch over several years and would ultimately save his life.

Ron Baldwin and Dr. Robert Phillips

Dr. Phillips, St. Peter’s Health Cardiology, met with Ron and went over his echocardiogram results. The echo revealed moderate aortic stenosis. It wasn’t ideal, but it wasn’t yet alarming. The plan was careful management, lifestyle adjustments, regular checkups, and yearly cardiac evaluations. For a while, things seemed stable.

Looking back now, Ron realizes how much his body had been compensating. He remembers hiking an especially demanding trail in Glacier National Park, a trail he’d done before, and being completely exhausted. He finished it, but it took everything he had. At the time, he chalked it up to age. In reality, his heart was quietly struggling to keep up.

By October of 2024, everything changed.

At his annual cardiology visit, the tone shifted immediately. His aortic stenosis was no longer moderate, it was severe. The urgency was unmistakable. The message was clear--- this was no longer something that could wait.

Ron went into “scientific stoic mode.” Ron, being a former pre-med student with a background in biology and chemistry, and a family full of nurses, he understood enough to know this was serious. He wanted facts. He wanted a plan.

That plan began with a cardiac catheterization with Dr. Elizabeth (Liz) Holper.

Ron Baldwin and Dr. Liz Holper

Despite never having been hospitalized before, Ron suddenly found himself being wheeled into a cath lab, a space that felt less like a room and more like a surgical theater. He remembers a nurse gently explaining what was about to happen, a team would surround him, each person with a specific role, moving quickly and efficiently. That warning turned out to be a gift.

The procedure revealed something critical. While his arteries were remarkably clean, “like highways,” as the doctor put it, his aortic valve was severely compromised. They also discovered a myocardial bridge involving the left anterior descending artery, sometimes referred to ominously as the “widow maker.” It wasn’t an emergency yet, but it was another piece of a growing puzzle.

Dr. Holper sent the results to the Providence Heart Institute in Missoula for further evaluation.

Within weeks, Ron and his wife Jeanne were driving west to Missoula for a full day of advanced testing. CT scans of his heart and major arteries were completed in the morning. By early afternoon, they were sitting across from Dr. Anthony Caffarelli, Providence Heart Institute’s chief thoracic surgeon.

Ron had done his homework. He hoped that a TAVR, a minimally invasive transcatheter valve replacement, would be the answer. It felt modern, elegant, and far less intimidating than open heart surgery.

As the results of the CT scan hit the monitor in the exam room, it became clear that TAVR was not an appropriate or adequate solution for Ron. Dr. Caffarelli proceeded to explain.

Ron wasn’t a candidate. He was too young, too healthy otherwise, and expected to live long enough that durability mattered. Instead, he would need open heart surgery to replace his failing valve with an artificial tissue value, repair of an ascending aortic aneurysm that had been silently growing, and surgical correction of the myocardial bridge.

The aneurysm alone made any delay risky.

In fact, Dr. Caffarelli was concerned enough that he personally escorted Ron and his wife to surgical scheduling to make sure they didn’t leave without a plan. Surgery was scheduled for December 18.

It was a three and a half hour procedure involving heart lung bypass, Ron’s first hospitalization, first surgery, and first confrontation with just how fragile life can be.

The surgery went well. Unfortunately, a complication occurred that kept Ron in the hospital for longer than expected, so he spent his first (and hopefully his last) Christmas in the hospital. As he slowly but surely regained his strength and waited for his body to maintain acceptable blood pressure and oxygen levels, the Providence cardiology team and nursing staff diligently oversaw his recovery.

Eventually, after 10 days in the hospital, he did go home. He was weak and anemic, but ever so glad to be in his own bed with his wife by his side.

This is where Ron’s visits with St. Peter’s Health Cardiac and Pulmonary Rehabilitation began.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dRIT4c7FhqM

In February 2025, his cardiac rehabilitation began. Dr. Phillips and Dr. Caffarelli both emphasized that rehab after open heart surgery was essential, not optional. First two days a week, then quickly transitioning to three days a week. His heart had to relearn how to respond to exertion. Blood pressure that once dropped during exercise slowly began to rise again, the way it should. Over the course of the next several months, the nurses and physiotherapy staff were essential, not just for his physical rehabilitation, but for his emotional well-being as he started his journey back to full health.

And through it all, the system worked.

Ron describes himself now as a poster child for how healthcare is supposed to function, not perfectly, but collaboratively. Multiple teams, multiple institutions, working together across disciplines and miles to keep one person alive.

“This is the holy grail of healthcare,” Baldwin says. “When a team finds out what’s wrong, monitors the problem and works together to find the right solution and cure. That’s how the system should work.”

St. Peter’s Health Primary care identified the problem. St. Peter’s Health Cardiology monitored and analyzed it. Providence fixed it. Then St. Peter’s Health ensured the fixes made to his heart will stand the test of time through coordinated and continued care.

Today, Ron feels fortunate and grateful. Grateful for the doctors who paid attention, the nurses who managed his care and recovery, and the network of care that carried him from diagnosis, to survival, then to success.

It’s a story about medicine, yes, but even more, it’s a story about what happens when people, systems, and timing come together to give someone another chance at life.