Into the heart, a medical odyssey

Walt Lillehei makes a speech at his 80th birthday party

The final chapter

Walt's health remained precarious after his 80th birthday celebration, in October 1998: just when he seemed on the mend, he suffered a setback, until, by the end of spring of 1999, was was hospitalized. He rallied one last time — and came home, where he died, surrounded by his family, late on July 5.

I spoke to Walt by phone several times during his illness, updating him on he progress of the book based in the serial, King of Hearts, which Random House will publish in February 2000. Despite having difficulty speaking, he was in decent spirits — until my last talk with him, about a week before he died, when he seemed spent. The strength that had seen him persevere through personal crises and professional challenges was ebbing; I sensed it strongly through the phone. A few days later, Walt's own heart failed, and he died.

And so, one of the great medical pioneers is gone. This is the obituary I wrote for The Providence Journal.

—G. Wayne Miller

7.7.99
Pioneer Dr. C. Walton Lillehei, 'Father of Open Heart Surgery', dies Monday in St. Paul at 80

By G. WAYNE MILLER
Journal Staff Writer

Dr. C. Walton Lillehei, considered by many to be the Father of Open Heart Surgery, died quietly late Monday at his home in St. Paul, Minn.

Lillehei, 80, had been in failing health for several months and succumbed to pneumonia.

Lillehei was the subject of Into the Heart: A Medical Odyssey, a nine-part Providence Journal series published in January. The series chronicled Lillehei's pioneering work in the 1950s to establish open-heart surgery — a common procedure today, but still only a dream when Lillehei started.

"He was truly a great man," said Dr. W. Hardy Hendren III, chief of surgery emeritus at Boston's Children's Hospital. Like many surgeons who trained in the 1950s, Hendren travelled to Minnesota to watch Lillehei at work. "Few people have left such an indelible mark on surgery as did Walton Lillehei," Hendren said yesterday.

Lillehei was noted not only for his own work, which many considered controversial — even radical — until his increasingly successful results proved his ideas true. He was also noted for a generation of open-heart surgeons that he trained in Minnesota and later in New York, including South African Christiaan N. Barnard, who performed the world's first heart transplant in 1967.

The son of a dentist and a professional piano player, Lillehei was born in Minneapolis in 1918. He attended Minneapolis public schools and graduated tenth in the University of Minnesota Medical School's Class of 1941.

During almost four years in the Army during World War II, Lillehei served in Africa and Italy, winning several combat medals and achieving the rank of lieutenant colonel. Lillehei commanded a mobile Army surgical hospital — a M.A.S.H unit.

On his return to Minneapolis, Lillehei began a long surgical residency, during which he became fascinated by the heart; many surgeons around the world were seeking to find the way to safely operate inside the heart and Lillehei joined the quest. In 1954, when some other doctors had given up in defeat, Lillehei achieved a stunning series of successes on children born with crippling heart defects. By the beginning of 1955, Lillehei was the only surgeon in the world who was routinely performing open-heart surgery.

Lillehei went on to play a leading role in the development of a safe heart-lung bypass machine; of heart valves; and of the pacemaker, among other technological innovations. He also created or refined many surgical techniques to correct rare defects that had been uniformly fatal before the advent of open-heart surgery.

Friends and relatives gathered in Minneapolis last October to pay black-tie tribute to Lillehei, whose health was even then beginning to fail.

Lillehei introduced several of his former patients, and one of the speakers said of him: "As the author Tom Wolfe would say, he's the guy with the right stuff."

Lillehei's brilliant career was marred by his 1973 conviction for federal tax fraud. Spared a prison sentence, Lillehei continued to lecture and write, and became the medical director of St. Jude Medical, the world's leading manufacturer of pacemakers.

Rarely introspective, Lillehei ascribed his success to hard work, diligence, a willingness to take risks, and a reluctance to accept the conventional wisdom. Often nominated for a Nobel prize, Lillehei was philosophical about never winning it — noting that many worthy candidates do not. "I never lose any sleep," he told Journal staff writer G. Wayne Miller, who wrote the January Journal series and a forthcoming book.

Lillehei is survived by his wife, Kaye; three children, Kim, Craig and Kevin; and seven grandchildren. Funeral arrangements are incomplete. A memorial service will be held in Aug. 5.