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Fred Wu, MD @FredWuMD
, 8 tweets, 4 min read Read on Twitter
It's open heart surgery's 66th birthday! On September 2, 1952, Dr. F. John Lewis at @UMNChildrens closed an atrial septal defect in 5yo Jacqueline Johnson using only total-body hypothermia, allowing him to halt her circulation for 5-1/2 minutes as he performed the operation. #CHD
Using cooling blankets, Jacqueline was cooled to 28°C before her chest was opened, her systemic veins and pulmonary artery were clamped, and her right atrium opened. In the photo Lewis appears at the near side of the table. Standing on a stool behind him is Dr. Walt Lillehei.
After quickly closing the hole and checking his work, Lewis closed up the heart and unclamped the vessels. Jacqueline's body was rewarmed in a watering trough ordered from a Sears catalog. She made a successful recovery and was discharged after 11 days. Lewis had made history.
According to @UMNChildrens, Jacqueline was still alive as of 2012, 60 years after her surgery, but I haven't been able to confirm her current status. Dr. Lewis went on to correct atrial septal defects in over 50 children over the next 3 years.
Hypothermia was of limited utility since few heart defects could be repaired in the 6-minute window before hypoxic injury occurred. Leaving the OR, Dr. Lillehei was heard saying, “Boy, there’s got to be a better way to do open-heart surgery than with total body hypothermia.”
If you're interested in reading more about the early days of heart surgery, there are a couple of great options. The first is @gwaynemiller's book, King of Hearts: The True Story of the Maverick Who Pioneered Open Heart Surgery, published in 2000. amazon.com/King-Hearts-Ma…
Another great book is @thomasngmorris's The Matter of the Heart: A History of the Heart in Eleven Operations, published last year. amazon.com/Matter-Heart-H…
@sjauhar's book, Heart: A History, is also coming out in just a couple of weeks, and it looks great! Looking forward to reading that one! amazon.com/Heart-History-…
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On the night of January 6, 1968, @StanfordMed surgeon Norman Shumway transplanted the heart of 43-year-old Virginia White into the chest of 54-year-old Mike Kasperak. It was the first adult heart transplant to be performed in the United States. #medhistory #DonateLife Dr. Norman ShumwayMike Kasperak and wifeVirginia White
By 1967, Shumway had already spent over a decade researching heart transplantation. In 1959, he and Richard Lower had performed the world's first successful heart transplant in a dog. Thus it was widely expected that he would be the first to perform a human heart transplant.
On Nov. 20, 1967, Shumway's team announced they were ready to attempt heart transplant in a human. However, just weeks later, on Dec. 3, Christiaan Barnard took the world, and Shumway, by surprise when he reported the world's first human heart transplant.
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It's remarkable how quickly heart transplantation took off after Barnard reported his first on December 3, 1967. By August 15, 1969, over a period of less than 2 years, there had been 144 heart transplants performed worldwide (excluding xenotransplants) in 20 countries!
Just for fun, let's see if you guys can guess the order in which countries performed their first respective heart transplants... I'll start with Christiaan Barnard's first transplant in South Africa and go through them in chronological order. I think you might be surprised!
#1.
Date: December 3, 1967
Location: Cape Town, South Africa
Surgeon: Christiaan Barnard
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To date, smallpox is the only major human disease that has been eradicated. September 11 happens to mark 40 years since Janet Parker became the last person ever to die from smallpox, and if you're interested, I thought I'd briefly share the story of this tragic milestone.
Smallpox is a viral infection that has been around for millennia. It was characterized by a fever followed by an eruption of skin lesions that ranged from very mild to overwhelming and lethal. Ramses V, who died in 1156 BCE, is believed to be one of the earliest known cases.
Edward Jenner, an English physician, is credited with the discovery that inoculation with cowpox can protect against the closely related but far deadlier smallpox, and for over a century, this remained the basis for vaccination against smallpox.
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#germanculture
Today is the 124-th #birthday of #German #mathematician Heinz Hopf(1894-1971). By ISBN 3-05-500402-7,page 173, Hopf in 1925 became one of only ten men during the 124 years from 1810-1933 whom the #mathematics faculty of #Berlin gave the grade of 'summa cum laude'..
.. for his doctorate. Hopf's relatively old graduation age of 28.5 years (which is old in mathematics, esp. in Hopf's time) is clearly due to #WorldWarOne: at age 18, Hopf volunteered to serve in the #German army, which he did(as a low-ranking officer) for a full four years..
.., in particular participating in the Battle of #Verdun of 1916,in which he was wounded. While on furlough in 1917, Hopf attended mathematics lectures, in particular by Erhard Schmidt, in his hometown of #Breslau (then still a #German town), which impressed him greatly. During..
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Today is the 218-th #birthday of the great #German #composer and #organist Eduard Grell (1800-1886). He is mostly remembered as a master composer of vocal music, in particular #churchmusic, and was noted outside #Germany. I reproduce an #obituary from..
.. 𝘛𝘩𝘦 𝘔𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘛𝘪𝘮𝘦𝘴, Vol. 27, No. 523 (Sep. 1,1886), p. 541:»On the 10th ult. [i.e. the 10th day of the last month; this being published in September, this means August 10, and this is indeed when Grell died LG,I] there died at Steglitz, near Berlin, a musician..
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Ok. It’s time to go into Joshua’s memory box and tell his story #thread
Joshua was very much a rainbow baby 🌈 and we were so excited and over the moon when I finally made it into the second trimester. (Alex and I are both big rugby fans!)
I was working as a 1st year Registrar in A&E when I suddenly broke my waters at 24 weeks. I was transferred to Southampton @UHSFT who have a specialist level 3 Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. They were wonderful, and did everything they could to stop my labour over Father’s Day.
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My dad is having open heart surgery right now. He's on full bypass. Dr has stopped his heart so they can replace clogged arteries.

I'm at a sushi place in CLT, waiting for my flight to DTW to see him. I'll probably be in the air when we first hear if he survived (98%).
2/ He is unconscious, laying on an operating room table near Detroit. His chest is splayed open. His veins and arteries are connected to a machine that breathes & pumps blood for him. A surgeon is carefully slicing into arteries that no longer serve their original function.
3/ My father is currently in a state between living and dead. Thanks to anesthesia, his consciousness is absent, but has the potential to return, If the surgeon succeeds.
Read 9 tweets
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Having trouble understanding what SJWs say?

1. You're not alone.
2. It may be simply a case of misunderstanding. They speak their own language, the beauty of which lies in its simplicity.

This dictionary helps you translate SJW talk into English and achieve word peace.
SJW-English Dictionary 01

socialism

A wonderful, equal, just and fair political system. Every good person wants to live in it. (The only exception are the people who actually live under socialism. They usually try to escape from it, the ungrateful bastards!)
SJW-English Dictionary 02

equality

1. preferential treatment
2. quotas to ensure preferential treatment
3. suppressing others to ensure preferential treatment
4. I don't care why I'm behind. I shouldn't be.
5. equality

See also: socialism, communism, feminism.
Read 458 tweets
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Shameless @CNNnews18. This is a 2011 photo, of not London or PoK but J&K - Corbis id: 42-19885773. (h/t @nitingooti)
This is unending. Now @IndiaToday uses an image of @airindiain for a story on @EGYPTAIR. (h/t @KanchanGupta)
HUGE. Unknown to all, Defence Minister @manoharparrikar has been holding another position, that of @ICC chairman.
Read 64 tweets

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