Norman Edward Shumway - Pioneer of cardiac surgery (February 9,1923 to February 10, 2006)

Abstract

After a fulfilled life, Norman E. Shumway, the great pioneer of cardiac transplantation, died of lung cancer 1 day after his 83rd birthday in Palo Alto, California, USA. Already at the beginning of the 1960s, he and his colleague Richard R. Lower did revolutionary experimental work on developing and establishing the technique of orthotopic cardiac transplantation in dogs. Several studies on cardiac transplantation were carried out in his department and a few years later, Shumway and his team were on their way to perform the worldwide first human-to-human cardiac transplantation. On December 3,1967, Christiaan Neethling Barnard, a cardiac surgeon from South Africa, forestalled Shumway and performed this operation in Cape Town, South Africa. This event initiated a global boom of cardiac transplantations in the following years." Many heart centers started their own cardiac transplant programs but high mortality rates led again to stagnancy of transplant activities. Shumway remained stable in believing in good results of cardiac transplantation and continued his program steadily At the beginning of the 1970s, he and his group were responsible for most cardiac transplantations worldwide.