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COLORADO SPRINGS, COLO. -- A first of its kind for Colorado as a rare heart surgery took place Friday afternoon.

Doctors at Memorial Hospital performed the surgery, known as hybrid ablation, that is designed to treat irregular heart rhythms.

The process involved two doctors working inside and outside the heart simultaneously.

"This is a pretty unique approach to this, and it's an improvement. It's not just something to say 'hey we did this,' this is actually much better for the patient," Dr. Chris Wehr, a cardiothoracic surgeon, said.

Irregular heart rhy thm, or atrial fibrillation, affects millions of Americans and is said to be one of the most prevailing problems among Baby Boomers.

"There are about three million people in the U.S. with this. Some people are asymptomatic, but a great number of people have symptoms ranging from fatigue, shortness of breath, with severe limitations on you know daily activities, and there can be some very serious dangerous consequences related to this," Dr. Brad Mikaelian, an electrophysiologist, said.

This hybrid surgery combines a surgical approach along with an invasive procedure to give the patient the best chance for success.

"Both procedures are commonly performed throughout different centers in the U.S., but what makes today's procedure unique and hopefully more beneficial for this individual and for people in the future is the combine approach," Mikaelian said.

He added that working together the patient can expect a better result than from either option alone.

Wehr agreed.

"His atrial fib is really bad, so his likelihood of success with either procedure is somewhat less than ideal, but by combining the two, putting the catheter based lesion set in, doing the more sophisticated sensing for the surgical part of it, I think we're gonna have a successful outcome," Wehr said.

By combing the surgeries into one the chance of needing a second surgery is also reduced.

"We're hoping that he'll no longer have any of these atrial fib episodes, and he'll go on to be just perfectly normal and be able to do whatever he wants," Wehr said.

Plus, having two experts in one room is another benefit for the patient as well.

"We're collaborating two different medical specialties to really increase the power of the procedure that we perform, and it will be much better for the patients. This collaborative approach is gonna be very valuable down the line," Wehr said.

Doctors said the number of people suffering from atrial fibrillation is expected to rise and this new surgery offers them another option in providing the best medical care.

"It just states that 'hey we're right on the cutting edge of heart therapy here,' and I think it's great for Memorial. I'm very pleased that I've got medical colleagues of this high of a caliber that I'm able to collaborate with them and do things like this, it's wonderful," Wehr said.

Doctors said Friday's surgery went as expected and the patient is doing just fine.