Origins of Cardiovascular Surgery at the Mayo Clinic

Sixty years ago, at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, an ambitious group of pioneers, led by Dr John W. Kirklin and supported by a multidisciplinary team of physicians and technicians embarked on a planned series of surgical cases using a heart-lung machine to allow direct visualization of the inside of the opened human heart to repair otherwise fatal congenital intracardiac defects. Their success sparked the beginning of a new era of open-heart surgery. In this historical article, we discuss the contributions of a few key figures of this revolution and also share the story of the first successful cardiac surgery operation using cardiopulmonary bypass performed at Mayo Clinic.