Forest Dewey Dodrill

Forest Dewey Dodrill (1902 to 1997) was an American physician and surgeon at Harper University Hospital, part of Wayne State University in Michigan. He was born in Webster Springs, West Virginia, took his bachelor's degree at West Virginia University in 1925 and graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1930. He then trained as an intern and resident at Harper Hospital in Detroit, where he became a staff surgeon, and in the early 1940s completed a thoracic surgical residency at the University of Michigan, receiving a master of surgery degree in 1942. He is remembered for the operation of 3 July 1952, when he completed the first successful open heart surgery on the left ventricle, on a patient named Henry Opitek. He used a machine developed by himself with researchers at General Motors, the Dodrill-GMR, which is considered the first operational mechanical heart used while performing open heart surgery.