Leonard Lee Bailey

Leonard Lee Bailey was an American surgeon, born in 1942 and died in 2019, who drew international media attention in 1984 for transplanting a baboon's heart into a human infant. Born in Takoma Park, Maryland, he earned a medical degree from Loma Linda University School of Medicine in 1969. After observing many children die of congenital heart disease during his residency at Toronto's Hospital for Sick Children, he returned to Loma Linda in 1976 and performed more than 200 experimental heart transplants on young mammals. On October 26, 1984, he and his team transplanted a baboon's heart into the infant known as Baby Fae, who died 21 days later, and the procedure was controversial because many considered it unethical. He became recognized for transplantation and for pediatric and infant open heart surgery.