Skip to contents
In This Issue:
Click here for additional photos commemorating historic event
Twenty years ago, BWH marked American Heart Month in a monumental way by conducting the first heart transplant in New England. The event, which took place here on February 2, 1984, displayed the caliber of clinical achievements capable at our institution. Only eight days after this historic event, BWH performed a second heart transplant.
Both transplants marked more than a milestone for BWH. According to those involved in the pivotal surgeries, it was a time to showcase BWH’s ability to orchestrate a multidisciplinary accomplishment swiftly and the first time that the newly formed BWH was catapulted to the national media scene.
“The first heart transplant defined the identity of BWH in many ways. Prior to our performing the first transplant, nearly a year’s worth of planning had taken place. This achievement was the first collective effort among a very diverse group of clinicians. It was one which instilled much pride throughout the entire institution,” said BWH cardiologist Gilbert Mudge, MD, who at the time served as clinical director of Cardiology and director of BWH’s Cardiac Transplantation program.
Although its predecessors enjoyed the recognition for their individual milestones, the 1984 heart transplant was BWH’s first nationally recognized milestone. These transplantations set the stage for many more trailblazing procedures, treatments and scientific discoveries—accomplishments for which BWH is highly regarded and recognized today.
“The event was on the front page of countless newspapers,” recalled Jack Sharpe, RN, OR staff nurse, who remembers how inspiring the patient success stories were for all BWH staff.
John Collins, MD was the cardiac surgeon leading the surgeries and Lawrence Cohn, MD, BWH’s current chief of Cardiac Surgery, assisted. Richard Shemin, MD, who has since left BWH, assisted also. Mudge was the lead cardiologist handling both patient cases.
The first transplant was performed on a 43-year-old man and the second on a 16-year-old boy. Although the first patient passed away within a year following his surgery, the second patient is still alive, and he is actively followed at BWH.
The cooperation required to accomplish such a trailblazing feat could only be possible with a keen sense of communication and collaboration. Such factors as involving Anesthesia and Pathology staff from the beginning of the planning process and carefully ensuring that pre-operative, OR and post-operative resources were in line to manage the high acuity of patient cases, were paramount to ensure success.
Rosemarie Maddi, MD, the attending anesthesiologist during the first transplant recalls vividly the clinicians’ reaction when the patient’s newly transplanted heart began to beat. “Although we all had masks on, you could see the joy and excitement in everyone’s eyes. We knew we had successfully given new life to our first patient.”
The techniques and technology used in these two cases and the seven others that followed in 1984 were considered state-of-the art at the time. Likewise, what would now be considered routine transplants were labeled as highly complex back then.
“Today, with the help of modern medicine and sophisticated techniques, we have the capability to provide much sicker patients with new hearts. The strides made in the field of transplantation continue to provide us with new opportunities for patients,” said Cohn.
In addition to marking the nation’s first quintuple lung transplant last month, BWH looks forward to celebrating the 50th anniversary of the first successful human organ transplant—a kidney between identical twins—performed by BWH’s Joseph Murray, MD, in 1954. This event, for which Murray received a Nobel Prize, elevated surgery from a field limited of deletion and removal to one of restoration and even addition.