Norman Shumway was an American cardiac surgeon at Stanford University who, working with colleague Randall Griepp, performed the first adult heart transplant in the United States in 1968, the year after Christiaan Barnard had performed the world's first such operation in South Africa. When early heart transplant recipients suffered poor survival due to organ rejection and most American surgeons abandoned the procedure, Shumway continued refining the technique, and his adoption of the immunosuppressant drug cyclosporine substantially improved patient outcomes and helped establish heart transplantation as standard treatment. He served as the 67th president of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery, trained many of the next generation's leading cardiothoracic surgeons, and received the Lister Medal in 1994.
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Norman Shumway is regarded as the father of heart transplantation in the United States.
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1. Wikidata: Norman Shumway
- Wikidata Q325690, class allow-list match (w-wdresolver-0926)
- Wikidata P569 (w-bbfill-medicine3-0926)
View the Source2. Norman Shumway (Wikipedia)
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Why is Norman Shumway important to heart transplantation?
He performed the first adult U.S. heart transplant in 1968 and helped make the operation routine by adopting cyclosporine.
Norman Shumway was an American cardiac surgeon at Stanford University who, with colleague Randall Griepp, performed the first adult heart transplant in the United States in 1968. When early recipients suffered poor survival from organ rejection and most American surgeons abandoned the procedure, Shumway kept refining the technique. His adoption of the immunosuppressant drug cyclosporine substantially improved patient outcomes and helped establish heart transplantation as standard treatment.
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