Page "C. Walton Lillehei" Paragraph 2

A Department of Surgery professor at the University of Minnesota from 1951 to 1967, Lillehei participated in the world's first successful open-heart operation using hypothermia.

In 1944, Alfred Blalock at Johns Hopkins University had begun successfully performing surgery on the great vessels around the heart to relieve the symptoms of tetralogy of Fallot, demonstrating that heart surgery could be possible.

Young and brash, Lillehei completed, at age 35, the first successful surgical repair of the heart on September 2, 1952.

That historic operation, using hypothermia, was led by his longtime friend and colleague, Dr. F. John Lewis.