September 29, 2025 • 45 mins
Walt Lillehei’s years of living and operating on the edge finally catch up with him. In Houston, rival surgeons attempt to resolve four decades of bad blood.
Presented by: Chris Pine
Written and Narrated by: Jamie Napoli
Executive Producers: Cristina Everett for iHeartPodcasts; Dub Cornett and Jason Ross for OSO Studios; Gerald Imber; Eric A. Rose, M.D.; John Mankiewicz; Joshua Paul Johnson; and Jamie Napoli
Supervising Producer: James A. Smith
Editing and Sound Design by: Joshua Paul Johnson
Composer: David Mansfield Cover Artwork by: Alexander Smith
Production Companies: iHeartPodcasts, OSO Studios, and 13th Lake Media
Production Legal Services: Jacqueline Eckhouse & Mel Pudig, Sloss Eckhouse Dasti Haynes LawCo; and Lincoln Bandlow, Lincoln Bandlow Law
Archival Materials Courtesy of: The University of Minnesota Archives, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities; Special Collections, University of Rhode Island Library; and G. Wayne Miller, author of "King of Hearts: The True Story of the Maverick Who Pioneered Open Heart Surgery"
Additional Archival Materials Courtesy of: "The Dick Cavett Show" (ABC 1970); C-SPAN; and Vanderbilt University
Additional Music & Stock Media Provided by: Music Bed; Premium Beat; Artlist; Envato Market; ccMixter (TuneTrack); and Incompetech
This podcast was recorded under a SAG-AFTRA collective bargaining agreement.
For more information on the history of open heart surgery, check out Dr. Gerald Imber's book "CARDIAC COWBOYS: The Heroic invention of Heart Surgery."
Copyright 2025, TTB, LLC. All rights reserved.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the wild West of American medicine. I'm Chris
Pine in This is Cardiac Cowboys, the gripping true story
behind the birth of open heart surgery and the Maverick
surgeons who made it happen. It's February sixteenth, nineteen seventy three.
(00:25):
An icy wind cuts through the concrete and stone buildings
of downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota. Reporters bundled in heavy coats,
are gathered at the US Courthouse after a day of deliberation.
The jury has reached a verdict in the case of
the United States v. Lelai. The courtroom is packed. Everyone
(00:49):
is waiting for the defendant to arrive.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
If they wanted to indyke me as a felony, A
command a felony.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
That's doctor Walt Lillahi the two things.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I could do play guilties completely or resisted with a trial.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Over the previous four and a half weeks, li la
High has spent nearly every weekday in this very courtroom
as the US Attorney for the District of Minnesota argued
for his conviction on five counts of tax fraud. For
each count, Li la High faces up to five years
in prison and ten thousand dollars in fines, in addition
(01:32):
to one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars in back taxes.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
I couldn't work other than I'd be right to be
at all hours.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
But I had to be there. It was one of
the most difficult truths of my life.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
The prosecution has introduced more than six thousand exhibits into evidence,
who produced one hundred and sixty four witnesses. These include
members of Lila High, his staff, his former patients, and
women who claim to have had intimate relationships with him,
one of them while working as a sex worker. Lilahai's wife,
(02:10):
Kay has avoided the trial, taking an extended trip away
from the Twin Cities for much of the previous month,
but it did her little good. Newspapers from the Honolulu
Star Bulletin to the New York Times have printed all
the sensational and humiliating details that have emerged in trial.
(02:37):
Over an hour after the jury reached its decision, Lilahi
arrives at the courthouse. He's fifty four years old. The
fact that he is still breathing is a miracle. Two
decades have passed since he was handed a death sentence
in the form of olymphosarcoma diagnosis. In the intervening years,
(02:58):
his neck has grown in crooked. Just keeping his head
upright has become a feat of strength and focus. He
looks older, worn down by long hours and little sleep,
but his deep set blue eyes remain as piercing as ever.
He stands at the defense table and stares straight ahead, inscrutable,
(03:23):
waiting for the court clerk to announce the jury's decision.
Walt Lilahai is the father of open heart surgery, a
doctor whose contributions to humanity are incalculable. Whatever the verdict,
those present in the courthouse can't help but wonder how
this could have happened, how such a great man could
have been brought so low, and how much farther he
(03:45):
has left to fall. Formoso's Studios, This is Cardiac Cowboys,
a podcast about life, death, an innovation in the American heartland.
(04:12):
Episode six, the Fates of the Cowboys. Here's writer and
executive producer Jamie Nappley.
Speaker 5 (04:20):
Before the nineteen fifties came to a close, Walt Lillihigh
had revolutionized cardiac surgery several times over, Doctors across the
country were using modified versions of his and Richard D.
Wall's bubble oxygenator to save the lives of children born
with deadly heart defects. Life threatening conditions like tetrology of
(04:43):
flow were now treatable with surgical procedures Lilihigh invented. Thanks
to Lillihigh and Medtronic founder Earl Bachin, the deadly condition
of heart block could now be corrected with a portable pacemaker,
and Lilihigh was just getting warmed up. By the end
of nineteen fifty seven, he and his team at the
University of Minnesota had performed over four hundred open heart operations,
(05:07):
more than any other surgical team at that time. By
September nineteen sixty, they passed one thousand. On top of
his breakneck surgery schedule, Lilla High was constantly on the
road introducing his cutting edge ideas to heart surgeons around
the world, and as his reputation grew, the world came
to Lillihide.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
A lot of people of all colors and religions came
to the University of Minnesota to learn about heart surgery.
Speaker 5 (05:38):
That's U of M cardiovascular surgeon doctor Sarah Shumway.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
Walt had learned a lot during the war about integration,
and he really took it to heart. Surgeons from England,
in India and throughout Europe would come and spend a
year at the University of Minnesota. In those days, you
had to get your BIA been in America.
Speaker 5 (06:02):
In nineteen fifty seven, Lilla High was named Minnesota's Man
of the Year by the United Press. Former President Harry S.
Truman personally congratulated Lilli High and his team when they
were honored with the Lascar Award, often referred to as
the American Nobel Prize for achievement in medical research. Despite
(06:23):
his practice of donating all of the patents for his
inventions to the university, Lillhigh was making money more than
he'd ever imagined. He and Ka moved their family of
six into a beautiful stone house designed by an acclaimed
Saint Paul architect. Lillihigh drove to the university hospital in
a Jaguar xke and on weekends the family would ride
(06:49):
up and down the Mississippi River in one of their
new powerboats.
Speaker 6 (06:54):
He would speed in it.
Speaker 7 (06:56):
I mean, you know who does.
Speaker 5 (06:57):
That, right, that's g Wayne Miller, author of the Lila
High biography, King of.
Speaker 7 (07:02):
Hearts, okay, I mean, could you imagine a chief of
surgery today, you know, like at mass General or the
Cleveland Clinic, driving around a speedboat, partying, drinking, driving, you know,
up a major river.
Speaker 5 (07:14):
While many surgeons slowed down on their drinking and partying
as they settled into middle age, Lillahigh remained as voracious
as ever.
Speaker 7 (07:24):
Walt liked to have a good time. He liked to laugh,
he liked to drink, He liked woman, he liked music,
he liked thrills. You know, because by rights he had
no right to even be alive.
Speaker 5 (07:43):
As always, Lilla High lived like there was no tomorrow,
and thanks to his continued success and the watchful presence
of surgical Chief Owen Wangenstein, Lilahi rarely faced consequences for
his questionable behavior. In nineteen sixty six, at a mead
of the American College of Cardiology, Lilli High was elected
(08:03):
as the organization's president. The old generation that had once
called him a cowboy and a criminal had finally aged
out after years of working on the margins fighting for
legitimacy within the nascent field of cardiac surgery. Willihi wasn't
just accepted by his peers. He was chosen as their leader.
(08:29):
That same year, surgical chief Owen Wangenstein made an announcement
that would mark a seismic shift at the University of
Minnesota and in the life of Walt Lillehigh.
Speaker 8 (08:41):
As Wangstein approached seventy, he was no longer able to
do actual surgery, and he decided it's time to retire.
And for Lilla High, that was unthinkable.
Speaker 5 (08:52):
That's medical historian and plastic surgeon doctor Gerald Imber.
Speaker 8 (08:56):
Wal Illahigh never knew anyone as chief of surgery other
than Owen Wangenstein. The north star was always Wangenstein. He
brought something to surgery that was very rare. He was
a scientific surgeon.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
Wangenstein had run the department for nearly four decades. In
that time, the u of M had been transformed from
a largely unknown medical institution to the cardiac center of
the world, rivaled only by the Baylor College of Medicine,
where Michael de Bakey and Denton Cooley reigned in Houston.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
We sort of changed the nature of the training of surgeons.
Speaker 5 (09:35):
That's an archival recording of doctor Owen Wangenstein.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Most people have learned surgery on the operating rome. We
taught our surgeons in the experimental laboratories.
Speaker 5 (09:47):
Walt Lilahigh embodied Wangenstein's ideal equal parts inventor and technical surgeon.
Speaker 8 (09:54):
When Wanngstein decided to retire, he was going to pass
the mantle through.
Speaker 6 (10:01):
Well with the University of Minnesota on the map. It
seemed natural. But the only person who thought it was
natural was Wengenstein.
Speaker 5 (10:11):
Here's Walt Lillehigh again.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
The search committee was loaded against Weinstein. They didn't watch
somebody that saw aggressive and horsemove indeutendant. They said they
didn't want another Weinstein.
Speaker 5 (10:26):
Lilleheim may not have been a natural fit for the
administrative role. He didn't enjoy his academic duties at the
u of M Medical School. He was notoriously bad with paperwork,
and he could barely manage his own office, let alone
an entire department. But he was the undeniable star of
the university hospital. According to Lillehigh, Although he expressed interest
(10:49):
in Wangenstein's job, even writing a letter to the dean
laying out his plans for the department, he wasn't even
granted an interview.
Speaker 8 (10:58):
It's as if you're saying, Joe DiMaggio want did it
be a batting coach.
Speaker 6 (11:03):
But we're not going to give him the job.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
It's crazy.
Speaker 9 (11:07):
The dean of the.
Speaker 8 (11:08):
Medical school had gone on record as saying Walt Illa
High is uncontrollable. He's a drunk and a womanizer, a
scare chaser, and he'll become chairman of the department over
my dead body.
Speaker 5 (11:23):
Instead of promoting a surgeon from within the department, the
selection committee looked elsewhere. In early nineteen sixty seven, they
settled on a young surgeon from the University of California,
San Francisco, who specialized in transplants of the abdominal organs.
Doctor John Nigerian may have lacked Walt Lillahig's fame and experience,
(11:47):
but he was imposing in his own way. At six
foot four, two hundred and fifty pounds, Nigerian had once
turned down an offer to play pro football for the
Chicago Bears. On June first, nineteen sixty seven, Nigerian arrived
at the u of M for his first day on
(12:07):
the job.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
When he got here and became chief, he was horrible.
Speaker 5 (12:14):
That's Walt Lilla High again.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
He took credit for everything, for all of the cardiac surgery.
He would always make the announcement to the newspapers, but
anything went wrong. Then it was a spokesman for the hospital,
exact opposite of Augustine. That was very obnoxious, very disfaceful.
Speaker 5 (12:32):
According to cardiac surgeon doctor Chip Bowman, it's possible that
Lila High didn't give Nigerian a fair shake.
Speaker 10 (12:39):
I think those probably are two of the biggest egos
I've ever seen in my life. Nigerian was doing groundbreaking
work too. I think they just were envious with one another.
Speaker 5 (12:51):
Litlahigh was devastated it being passed over. He didn't lash
out or explode, true to form, he ignored the blow
to his ego and pressed on with his work. But
Lila High had spent a lifetime damning up his disappointments
and frustrations. Now the dam was beginning to burst.
Speaker 7 (13:12):
I think the wild part of Walt at that point
became uncontained.
Speaker 5 (13:18):
That's author g Wayne Miller again.
Speaker 7 (13:20):
The thrill seeking and the not caring, and the having
fun and the calamities exemplified the wildness going uncontained.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
That summer, Walt, Lila High and his wife Kay were
driving their powerboat back from dinner with friends, coming back on.
Speaker 11 (13:40):
The Saint Croix river, driving at night and driving fast.
Speaker 5 (13:44):
That's Walt and Kay's son, doctor Craig Lilihide.
Speaker 11 (13:47):
Mom, who knew the river, she spent much more time
on it, had just stood up and said, Walt, I
think there's a sandbar up here. He hit it full
tilt and Mom was launched into the ashboard. She had
multiple facial injuries. Dad on a boat that wasn't a
great combination.
Speaker 5 (14:07):
Kay remained in the University hospital for ten days as
doctors performed reconstructive surgery on her face. On another day
that summer, the Lilla High's beautiful new house caught fire.
No one was injured, and the house was saved from destruction.
(14:33):
Many of the family's possessions, including Walt Lilla High's slides
and financial records, were damaged or destroyed. Years later, Kay
would look back on that summer as a series of
painful memories. Here's an archival recording of Kay Lillihigh.
Speaker 12 (14:51):
It was not a pleasant in China. That was the
year I had my accident, been our house burned. It's
funny summery daily Christmas Pike that year. I think I
dropped her some, but I keep gritting this ship. Also,
I got the data nineties.
Speaker 5 (15:08):
Accept Not long after Nigerian took over at the U
of M, lill High announced that he would be leaving
his alma mater to run a surgical department of his
own at the New York Hospital Cornell Medical Center. Cornell
was precisely the kind of conservative Ivy League establishment Lilla
(15:29):
High had spent his career squaring off against. This new
job would bring him the prestige and the paycheck that
he deserved. In turn, he'd bring Cornell into the new
frontier of cardiac surgery.
Speaker 12 (15:44):
We went to New York where ducked his houses out
along ways, and I had just been in very bad exit,
so I kind of with it.
Speaker 6 (15:53):
Anyhow, I didn't want to go.
Speaker 5 (15:56):
It had been a hell of a summer for k
hell of a marriage. In fact, her husband may have
been a genius, but he was not an easy man
to be married to.
Speaker 13 (16:06):
I could spend a lot of time in clinical and research,
so it wasn't much time.
Speaker 9 (16:11):
I don't know. I bet my wife just trust me as.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
A favorite home.
Speaker 5 (16:17):
In the end, Kay decided that she and the kids
would stay behind in Saint Paul. As Lilahai's final day
at the U of m approached. A dispute arose regarding
the equipment that filled his laboratory. Lilihi wanted to bring
his lab resources with him to New York.
Speaker 11 (16:39):
Dad felt they were his. They were bought on his grants.
Speaker 5 (16:43):
That's doctor Craig Lilihigh again.
Speaker 10 (16:45):
Well.
Speaker 11 (16:45):
The university felt otherwise.
Speaker 5 (16:48):
To prevent him from taking anything out of the lab. Unnoticed,
Nigerian had the equipment inventoried before he left Minnesota. Lili
High and his team rented moving vans and under cover
of darkness, drove them to the university.
Speaker 11 (17:05):
What they did is they loaded all the stuff into
the U haul drugs and drove them to New York.
Clearly this was done off hours because no one was around.
Speaker 5 (17:15):
When Djerion arrived at work the following day, he'd be
enraged to find Lila High's lab completely empty except for
one thing.
Speaker 11 (17:24):
They left a vase with a single rose in the
center of the lab and the rest of the place
was cleared out. Some might characterize it as thievery, but
whatever it was that did happen.
Speaker 5 (17:36):
Litla High hadn't lost his flare for the dramatic. He
arrived in New York in the fall of nineteen sixty seven.
Striding through the hospital with his entourage of cowboy surgeons,
(17:57):
Little High turned heads from the start.
Speaker 8 (18:00):
He brought with him seventeen people on his staff, and
they included Whites, Blacks, Jews, Hindus, Japanese, everybody.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
That's doctor Gerald Imber again.
Speaker 6 (18:12):
Because they were all people live Walt and Wangenstein thought
was smart or or had good ideas, and they stood
out like a saw thumb in New York Hospital in
in nineteen sixty seven, which was exceedingly waspy enclave at
the time.
Speaker 5 (18:30):
Early in his tenure at New York Hospital Cornell Medical Center,
Lillahi did exactly what he was hired to do. He
worked on the cutting edge, making history and headlines along
the way. In December, the world's first successful human heart
transplant was performed in Cape Town, South Africa. The procedure
(18:51):
had been pioneered by two of Lila High's trainees, Christian
Barnard and Norm Shumway. In June of the following year,
lille High himself entered the heart transplant arena. His fourth
transplant in February of nineteen sixty nine was a landmark
operation in its own right. Lili High's team removed not
(19:15):
just the heart, but also the liver, kidneys and corneas
from a single donor and transplanted them into six different recipients,
extending the lives of four patients and giving sight to
two others. On Christmas Day nineteen sixty nine, he transplanted
a new heart and lungs into a forty three year
(19:36):
old New jerseyman who was dying of emphysema. This was
only the second heart lung transplant in history. Denton Cooley
down in Houston had gotten there first, but try as
he might to stay out ahead in the heart race,
Lillihigh had lost.
Speaker 13 (19:52):
A step, but that time was losing his vision.
Speaker 5 (19:58):
That's an archival recording of cardiothoracic surgeon and Lilla High trainee,
doctor Richard dwall.
Speaker 13 (20:05):
I think the radiation that he had had in cataracts
and so on, so that he really couldn't see to operate.
Speaker 5 (20:10):
And yet another way, Lilla High found himself debilitated by
the aggressive cancer treatment he'd undergone two decades earlier. His
ability to operate was under threat, and yet operating was
the only thing Lila High enjoyed about his new job.
He viewed his administrative duties with disdain.
Speaker 14 (20:30):
Being chairman of the department is terrible job.
Speaker 5 (20:33):
That's doctor Lilli High again.
Speaker 14 (20:35):
Committee meetings are endless, all his little problems that take
up your time. So and so I've been wrong and
so and so on. But to speak to this person
or that person, then it's terrible.
Speaker 5 (20:47):
The rapid deterioration of his vision and his new title
weren't the only ways in which Lila High had changed.
Without the structure of his home life with Kay and
their four kids, and without the mentorship of his old boss,
Owen Wangenstein, Lilli High was unmoored.
Speaker 7 (21:04):
The wildness became uncontrollable.
Speaker 5 (21:07):
In his biography of Lilla High, g Wayne Miller describes
him projecting a slide of a topless woman in his
first lecture to Cornell Medical students.
Speaker 7 (21:16):
His opening presentation using a Playboy centerfold. You know, like
this is not what you do when you go anywhere,
but certainly not too on Ivy League facility. He didn't care.
He was into a place in his life where he
just wanted to do what he wanted to do to,
you know, the emotional harm of people around him who
(21:39):
were close, who he loved, and who loved him.
Speaker 5 (21:44):
Lilla High was known to frequent a bar and restaurant
on East seventieth called the Recovery Room. There he surrounded
himself with eager young residents and attractive nurses. He had affairs.
He threw frequent parties in his lavish four bedroom apartment.
Speaker 6 (22:05):
There were nights when he was the last person in
the bar.
Speaker 5 (22:08):
That's doctor Gerald Imber again.
Speaker 8 (22:10):
And there were nights when neighbors heard fights between Walt
and Kay when she was there visiting. One night in particular,
he was banging on the door three o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 6 (22:21):
She wouldn't let him in.
Speaker 5 (22:22):
At the hospital, he developed a reputation for avoiding meetings.
He was on the road much more than ever before
in his career, lecturing in medical schools all over the world,
often to the detriment of his own work. Lili High
was rapidly wearing out his welcome in New York. According
to former resident doctor Daniel A. Gore, just months into
(22:45):
Lilla High's tenure at Cornell, doctors were already discussing the
certainty of his early departure.
Speaker 6 (22:52):
The handwriting was already on the wall.
Speaker 8 (22:54):
I don't know Walt was aware of his failing eyesight
as much as everyone around him was.
Speaker 6 (23:02):
But when you reach a point when a man.
Speaker 8 (23:04):
Is professor of surgery and the residents feel they have
to send a senior residence in the room with him
so he doesn't hurt someone, things are bad.
Speaker 5 (23:14):
In the spring of nineteen seventy, a little over two
years since he'd arrived in New York to much excitement
and fanfare, lili High was notified that he would be
relieved of his duties as the surgical chief and the
chairman of the department. To those who worked with him,
the news came as no surprise. The only person who
(23:35):
felt blindsided was Walt Lillehigh. This time around, he didn't
seek a position at another hospital or abscond with his
lab equipment. Stripped of his titles, lili High continued to
operate and lecture at Cornell for as long as they'd
have him. Because there was another more dire problem looming
on the horizon. Little High had always lacked for organizationals
(24:00):
gills back at the U of M. His financial record
keeping comprised hand scrawled note cards crammed into shoe boxes.
Speaker 15 (24:08):
It's been an absolutely impossible problem to keep my desk clean.
It's something like trying to cleep clearing I think in
the Amazon jungle or in the Zambizi River.
Speaker 5 (24:19):
This harmless quirk took on grave significance in nineteen sixty
nine when he learned he might face legal action for
years of unpaid taxes. Lillehigh was offered a plea deal,
but he turned it down. On April thirteenth, nineteen seventy two,
he was charged with filing false and fraudulent income tax
(24:40):
returns over the course of five years in Minnesota.
Speaker 11 (24:44):
I remember going through these bills and Dad, yeah, these
are from ten years ago.
Speaker 5 (24:48):
That's doctor Craig Lillehigh again.
Speaker 11 (24:51):
He said, yeah, yeah, well I I haven't filed that yet.
So he was always way behind his taxes and other
things took priority.
Speaker 5 (24:59):
And here's doctor Richard Dwall again.
Speaker 13 (25:02):
Knowing Wald as well as I did. I really don't
think he intentionally avoided paying income to Texas. He just
didn't care about it. This was his mentality at the time.
Lived today for the important things. If you don't think
it's important, forget about it.
Speaker 5 (25:18):
In early January of the following year, the government's case
against lille High went to trial. Lillehigh commuted to court
from his home in Saint Paul. He'd sit in silence
as the prosecution presented hundreds of instances of his poor judgment.
(25:42):
He had deducted home television repair costs as office supplies,
boat storage charges as attorney's fees, and veterinary treatment for
the family cat as pharmaceutical supplies. But what made headlines
were the payments to women who alleged that they'd had
intimate relationships with Ilahigh. The most egregious of these was
(26:03):
the one hundred dollars deducted as typing expenses paid to
a sex worker during a Las Vegas medical convention.
Speaker 11 (26:11):
It was some of the other behaviors that were uncovered
with other women, and that was obviously very disheartening from
my mom. I was away at school, and in fact
I remember they had a little kiosk in Harvard Square
where I'd get the paper to be able to read
about it. Because Mom wasn't very happy to talk about it.
Dad wasn't going to talk about it much either.
Speaker 5 (26:35):
Lilahi's lawyer argued that rather than owing the government hundreds
of thousands of dollars, Lillahigh was in fact owed money
the royalties for medical patents he donated to the U
of M. This may have been accurate, but coming after
weeks of damning testimony and evidence that showed flagrant instances
of tax fraud, it'd be a difficult pill for the
(26:57):
jury to swallow. On February sixteenth, Lila High arrived in
court to hear the verdict. Though Kay had been absent
throughout the trial, she was with him now. Little High
stood as the court clerk read out the jury's decision
(27:18):
on each of the five counts.
Speaker 16 (27:21):
Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty.
Speaker 5 (27:42):
In the weeks that followed, the medical establishment would rush
to cast Lilla High from its ranks. In March, his
license to practice medicine was suspended by the Minnesota Board
of Medical Examiners. Members of the New York Board and
the American College of Surgeons attempted to suspend Little High
from these bodies as well. It didn't matter. Little High's
(28:05):
eyesight was compromised, and though he was just fifty four
years old, it was no longer safe for him to operate.
He served six months of court mandated charitable medical service
at a VA hospital in Brooklyn, rather than leading operations.
Little High would assist the VA surgeons.
Speaker 11 (28:27):
Dad Dad was low. I remember visiting him in New
York during that time and he never shared his downs
with me, but you could tell that it was a
low point. He felt badly about it.
Speaker 5 (28:46):
As the end of the year approached, Little High scrubbed
up one final time, just as he had many times
over the sixth months prior, Lillahi checked his ego at
the oar door and assisted his junior colleagues. He already
(29:07):
had a cataract operation on the books. Lilahai knew his
days as a surgeon were at an end. When the
operation was over, Lillihaigh announced his retirement quietly to the
young surgeon standing beside him.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Kay Colina editor, I said, this is going to be
the last operation, because I'm going to look at this.
Speaker 14 (29:31):
Care act removed in em tu trick.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Sir said that was my last up race.
Speaker 5 (29:44):
Lillahi moved back home to Saint Paul, Minnesota. His legacy
was tarnished, if not destroyed completely, But as he stepped
out of the limelight and into a life of relative obscurity,
he found that a new opportunity layout before him. His family,
whom he'd so often overlooked through the years, was somehow
(30:08):
still standing strong at his side. Perhaps now he could
do right by them. Throughout the nineteen seventies, the practice
(30:28):
of heart transplantation had stopped nearly altogether. At Stanford University,
one surgeon persisted. Doctor Norm Shamwey, the man who pioneered
the human heart transplant, continued to practice and refine the
procedure in the face of legal conflicts and controversy. In
(30:49):
the late nineteen seventies, the discovery of an immunosuppressant called
psyclosporin changed everything.
Speaker 17 (30:58):
In December of nineteen eighty, the FI permitted us to
use it in clinical heart transplantation. And then the results immediately,
we're getting something like eighty to ninety percent one year survival.
Speaker 5 (31:11):
That's an archival recording of doctor Shumway.
Speaker 17 (31:14):
Then all of the other programs in heart transplantation began
to come to life.
Speaker 5 (31:21):
Today, more than forty five hundred heart transplants are performed
every year in the US alone, and the average life
expectancy for recipients is well over ten years. The long
term success of heart transplantation is in large part thanks
to the radical perseverance of Norm Shumway, the life of
(31:43):
the man who won the transplant race took a different
course entirely.
Speaker 18 (31:49):
Have you ever regretted this at the times when you
have been attacked by people in gutten mail where they've
said this was an unfortunate thing, this heart transplanting and
on it have been sorry, mate.
Speaker 19 (32:01):
I have regretted the whole affair when I saw how
much my children suffered. As it is out of the place,
taking up really intimate family life. I regret it when
I realized how much my family suffet sit us out
of this.
Speaker 5 (32:18):
After his divorce, Christian Barnard was married twice more, to
a nineteen year old Johannesburg heiress in nineteen seventy and
to a twenty four year old model in nineteen eighty eight.
Rheumatoid arthritis wreaked havoc on his hands until he stopped
operating altogether in nineteen eighty three. While his younger brother
(32:40):
Marius developed the first critical illness insurance program in the
world and fought apartheid as a member of the South
African Parliament, Christian Barnard continued to bask in his celebrity,
publishing health books and novels, and drawing criticism for his
endorsement of a face cream that promised to reverse aging.
(33:00):
Here's Norm Shumway again.
Speaker 17 (33:02):
It's too bad because I think Bernard was a very
capable cardiac surgeon in his later practice. But I think
his contribution was awakening of the neurosurgical community into the
concept of brain death. I think we can say he was,
in that sense a true pioneer.
Speaker 5 (33:27):
At the rapidly growing Texas Heart Institute in Houston Denton,
Cooley continued to perform more heart operations than any surgeon alive.
In two thousand and one, he and his team hit
the unprecedented milestone of one hundred thousand open heart surgeries.
He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President
(33:48):
Ronald Reagan and the National Medal of Technology by President
Bill Clinton. He continued operating until his eighty seventh birthday,
nearly one hundred years.
Speaker 20 (34:01):
Our country has been blessed with the endless talents and
dedication of doctor Michael DeBakey.
Speaker 5 (34:06):
That's President George W. Bush presenting DeBakey with the Congressional
Gold Medal.
Speaker 20 (34:12):
He has dedicated his career to a truly noble ambition,
bettering the life of his fellow men. So doctor DeBakey,
on behalf of all those you pealed and those you've
inspired me. Thank you, May God bless you.
Speaker 5 (34:25):
In addition to the Congressional Gold Medal, DeBakey was honored
with the National Medal of Science, the Presidential Medal of Freedom,
and Alaskar Reward. From the development of the mass Unit
to the birth of Medicare, Debake's influence extended to all
facets of American healthcare in the twentieth century and into
(34:46):
the present day. Nicknamed the Texas Tornado, DeBakey was one
of the most trusted doctors in modern history, consulting in
the personal medical care of Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon,
as well as President Boris Yelson of Russia. After saving
the life of the Duke of Windsor, the former King
(35:07):
Edward the eighth of England, DeBakey was bestowed with yet
another fitting nickname, Maestro, and while he worked down the
street from his protege, Denton Cooley, the two men did
not talk for the better part of four decades, and
yet to this day, Tobaky's son Michael, and many of
his friends and family insists there never was a feud.
(35:31):
Feud is not the word I would have used.
Speaker 11 (35:33):
I think that's a bad description of the problem.
Speaker 5 (35:37):
On the last day of two thousand and five, DeBakey
was preparing a speech when he suffered a dissection of
the aorda. Well aware of the abysmal odds of surviving
serious vascular surgery at age ninety seven, he told his
family it simply pulled a muscle and ignored the pain.
For the next month, he refused to undergo surgery. By
(36:01):
February ninth, DeBakey was in critical condition as he lay
unresponsive at Methodist Hospital. His family and surgical team, led
by lifelong bail or surgeon doctor George p Noon, made
the decision to operate replacing Debake's ascending aorda with a
dacron graft. It's a procedure pioneered decades earlier by debake
(36:25):
and Denton Cooley, and it saved DeBakey's life. After he
was discharged and recovering at home, DeBakey received a visit
from an unexpected guest.
Speaker 21 (36:38):
That he really did want to make amends.
Speaker 5 (36:40):
That's doctor Louise Cooley Davis, a daughter of Denton Cooley.
Speaker 21 (36:45):
He wanted to apologize and give his respect to debate.
When doctor de Bakey recovered from all this, it was
as if he had been born again and forgot that
he was mad at my father.
Speaker 5 (37:03):
In October of two thousand and seven, at a meeting
of the Denton A. Cooley Cardiovascular Surgical Society, a ninety
nine year old Michael de Bakey entered the auditorium in
a motorized scooter and rolled to the stage to accept
a Lifetime Achievement award. Here's trauma and cardiovascular surgeon doctor
(37:23):
Kenneth Maddox.
Speaker 9 (37:25):
There was not a dry eye in the room. Everybody
was standing on the tables and chairs, and there must
have been twenty thirty minutes of ovation. And when the
ovation stopped, Denton had a prepared script and could not
finish it. That's when Denton said, I'm glad our feud
(37:45):
is over, and doctor DeBakey said, at that point, Den,
we never had a feud.
Speaker 5 (37:55):
In April of nineteen seventy nine, Walt Kay and their
son Craig Lilihigh attended an annual meeting of the American
Association for Thoracic Surgery hundreds of heart surgeons were present,
some of whom confessed to feeling uncomfortable seeing Lila High
in the audience.
Speaker 11 (38:14):
He was viewed very much as a paria in cardiac
surgery and boy, that had been his life.
Speaker 5 (38:20):
That's doctor Craig Lilahigh again.
Speaker 11 (38:22):
I remember the darkness of the room, the lights, the
big crowd in there, and it was the presidential address
that doctor Kirkland was giving.
Speaker 5 (38:30):
Doctor John Kirklin was an eminent cardiac surgeon at the
Mayo Clinic and a former colleague and competitor of Lilla High's.
For a time in nineteen fifty five and nineteen fifty six,
he was the only other surgeon in the world performing
open heart operations.
Speaker 11 (38:47):
And he started to tell a story about the beginnings
of cardiac surgery and use that opportunity to credit Dadis
as one of the great pioneers.
Speaker 5 (39:00):
Of Walt Lillehi. Kirkland said, he always was and still
is a great hero of mine because of his enormous
ability and warm friendship.
Speaker 11 (39:11):
This is a giant. Kirkland was the president of the
Society at the time, and it was a giant saying
here's our pioneer and recognizing him, and they said, please
stand up.
Speaker 5 (39:27):
Lillehi got to his feet as the crowd of former
colleagues and rivals, trainees and enemies delivered a thunderous applause,
welcoming the disgraced surgeon back into their ranks. By then,
(39:53):
the heyday of the cowboy cardiac surgeon was already over,
consigned to history and myth. With greater oversight and the
rise of interventional cardiology, the nature of the job has changed,
and while patients are safer today than ever before, the
world may never again see the likes of Walt Lilla High,
(40:16):
Michael de Bakey, Denton Cooley, Norm Shumway, and Christian Barnard.
Speaker 22 (40:23):
When I entered the training program through a heart surgeon,
you will like a fighter pilot.
Speaker 5 (40:29):
That's cardiac surgeon, Doctor Eric Rose.
Speaker 22 (40:32):
Every mission that you went on required enormous skill, and
it really was centered in you. What's evolved now though,
I think being a heart surgeon is more like being
an airplane pilot and a commercial airline. There are systems
of support and there's so much experience worth doing it,
and heart surgery now is a team sport.
Speaker 5 (40:55):
And here's doctor Gerald Imber again there's no way.
Speaker 8 (40:58):
You could experiment this way in any hospital and get
away with it. But this was in the mid twentieth
century and medicine was truly marching forward, and people took chances,
and people died, but in the long run, lots of
people lived.
Speaker 5 (41:22):
Edward Darval had just lost his wife and daughter in
a horrific car accident when he was asked to make
the most difficult decision of his life. After a moment's reflection,
he agreed to donate his daughter Denise's heart to extend
the life of Louis Wishkansky. Marcel de Rutter lay dying
(41:43):
when he told his wife that he was happy to
serve as a guinea pig for Michael de Bakey's experimental
ELVAD so that the doctor might learn something that would
save someone else. After losing their thirteen month old son,
Gregory Lyman and Francis Gliddon did not hesitate to let
Walt Lillahie reopen the boy's chest and examine the sutures
(42:06):
in his heart because it might prevent other young parents
from having to say goodbye to their child. The history
of open heart surgery is written on death certificates and headstones.
It is the history of dying patients and their desperate families.
Unfathomably courageous men and women who faced impossible choices and
(42:30):
chose to act not just to save themselves, but to
save those who would come after them. So when we
tell the story of the Cardiac Cowboys, we're speaking not
only of the bold surgeons who pioneered a new field.
We're talking about the Glittons, the Richmond's, the Thompson's, the Darvals,
(42:51):
the Washkanskis, the d Rudders and the Carks, and the
thousands of other families who signed up to be first,
who took on all the risk, knowing that even if
they did not survive, their hearts would change the world.
(43:34):
Cardiac Cowboys is a production of iHeart Podcasts, OsO Studios
and Thirteenth Lake Media. We're presented by Chris Pine and
written and narrated by me Jamie n Appley. Our executive
producers are Christina Everett for iHeart Podcasts, Dub Cornette and
Jason Ross for OsO Studios. Doctor Gerald Imber, author of
(43:59):
Cardiac cow Boys, The Heroic Invention of Heart Surgery, Doctor
eric A. Rose, John Mankowitz, Joshua Paul Johnson and myself.
James A. Smith is our supervising producer. Editing and sound
design by Joshua Paul Johnson. Our composer is David Mansfield.
(44:19):
Our cover artwork is designed by Alexander Smith. Archival materials
courtesy of the University of Minnesota Archives, University of Minnesota
Twin Cities Special Collections, University of Rhode Island Library, and
g Wayne Miller, author of the Walt Lilla High biography
King of Hearts, The True Story of the Maverick who
(44:41):
pioneered open Heart Surgery. Special thanks to Edie Blasco, Hannah Comstock,
Lisa Edelstein, Antonia debarros Ian Gottler, Clark Harris, Josh Littman,
g Wayne Miller, David Stratha, and Saxon Trainer. For more
(45:03):
information on the first cardiac surgeons, check out doctor Gerald
Imber's book Cardiac Cowboys, The Heroic Invention of Heart Surgery,
Welcome to the wild West of American medicine. I'm Chris
Pine in This is Cardiac Cowboys, the gripping true story
behind the birth of open heart surgery and the Maverick
surgeons who made it happen. It's February sixteenth, nineteen seventy three.
(00:25):
An icy wind cuts through the concrete and stone buildings
of downtown Saint Paul, Minnesota. Reporters bundled in heavy coats,
are gathered at the US Courthouse after a day of deliberation.
The jury has reached a verdict in the case of
the United States v. Lelai. The courtroom is packed. Everyone
(00:49):
is waiting for the defendant to arrive.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
If they wanted to indyke me as a felony, A
command a felony.
Speaker 1 (01:00):
That's doctor Walt Lillahi the two things.
Speaker 2 (01:03):
I could do play guilties completely or resisted with a trial.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
Over the previous four and a half weeks, li la
High has spent nearly every weekday in this very courtroom
as the US Attorney for the District of Minnesota argued
for his conviction on five counts of tax fraud. For
each count, Li la High faces up to five years
in prison and ten thousand dollars in fines, in addition
(01:32):
to one hundred and twenty five thousand dollars in back taxes.
Speaker 3 (01:36):
I couldn't work other than I'd be right to be
at all hours.
Speaker 4 (01:41):
But I had to be there. It was one of
the most difficult truths of my life.
Speaker 1 (01:50):
The prosecution has introduced more than six thousand exhibits into evidence,
who produced one hundred and sixty four witnesses. These include
members of Lila High, his staff, his former patients, and
women who claim to have had intimate relationships with him,
one of them while working as a sex worker. Lilahai's wife,
(02:10):
Kay has avoided the trial, taking an extended trip away
from the Twin Cities for much of the previous month,
but it did her little good. Newspapers from the Honolulu
Star Bulletin to the New York Times have printed all
the sensational and humiliating details that have emerged in trial.
(02:37):
Over an hour after the jury reached its decision, Lilahi
arrives at the courthouse. He's fifty four years old. The
fact that he is still breathing is a miracle. Two
decades have passed since he was handed a death sentence
in the form of olymphosarcoma diagnosis. In the intervening years,
(02:58):
his neck has grown in crooked. Just keeping his head
upright has become a feat of strength and focus. He
looks older, worn down by long hours and little sleep,
but his deep set blue eyes remain as piercing as ever.
He stands at the defense table and stares straight ahead, inscrutable,
(03:23):
waiting for the court clerk to announce the jury's decision.
Walt Lilahai is the father of open heart surgery, a
doctor whose contributions to humanity are incalculable. Whatever the verdict,
those present in the courthouse can't help but wonder how
this could have happened, how such a great man could
have been brought so low, and how much farther he
(03:45):
has left to fall. Formoso's Studios, This is Cardiac Cowboys,
a podcast about life, death, an innovation in the American heartland.
(04:12):
Episode six, the Fates of the Cowboys. Here's writer and
executive producer Jamie Nappley.
Speaker 5 (04:20):
Before the nineteen fifties came to a close, Walt Lillihigh
had revolutionized cardiac surgery several times over, Doctors across the
country were using modified versions of his and Richard D.
Wall's bubble oxygenator to save the lives of children born
with deadly heart defects. Life threatening conditions like tetrology of
(04:43):
flow were now treatable with surgical procedures Lilihigh invented. Thanks
to Lillihigh and Medtronic founder Earl Bachin, the deadly condition
of heart block could now be corrected with a portable pacemaker,
and Lilihigh was just getting warmed up. By the end
of nineteen fifty seven, he and his team at the
University of Minnesota had performed over four hundred open heart operations,
(05:07):
more than any other surgical team at that time. By
September nineteen sixty, they passed one thousand. On top of
his breakneck surgery schedule, Lilla High was constantly on the
road introducing his cutting edge ideas to heart surgeons around
the world, and as his reputation grew, the world came
to Lillihide.
Speaker 4 (05:31):
A lot of people of all colors and religions came
to the University of Minnesota to learn about heart surgery.
Speaker 5 (05:38):
That's U of M cardiovascular surgeon doctor Sarah Shumway.
Speaker 4 (05:42):
Walt had learned a lot during the war about integration,
and he really took it to heart. Surgeons from England,
in India and throughout Europe would come and spend a
year at the University of Minnesota. In those days, you
had to get your BIA been in America.
Speaker 5 (06:02):
In nineteen fifty seven, Lilla High was named Minnesota's Man
of the Year by the United Press. Former President Harry S.
Truman personally congratulated Lilli High and his team when they
were honored with the Lascar Award, often referred to as
the American Nobel Prize for achievement in medical research. Despite
(06:23):
his practice of donating all of the patents for his
inventions to the university, Lillhigh was making money more than
he'd ever imagined. He and Ka moved their family of
six into a beautiful stone house designed by an acclaimed
Saint Paul architect. Lillihigh drove to the university hospital in
a Jaguar xke and on weekends the family would ride
(06:49):
up and down the Mississippi River in one of their
new powerboats.
Speaker 6 (06:54):
He would speed in it.
Speaker 7 (06:56):
I mean, you know who does.
Speaker 5 (06:57):
That, right, that's g Wayne Miller, author of the Lila
High biography, King of.
Speaker 7 (07:02):
Hearts, okay, I mean, could you imagine a chief of
surgery today, you know, like at mass General or the
Cleveland Clinic, driving around a speedboat, partying, drinking, driving, you know,
up a major river.
Speaker 5 (07:14):
While many surgeons slowed down on their drinking and partying
as they settled into middle age, Lillahigh remained as voracious
as ever.
Speaker 7 (07:24):
Walt liked to have a good time. He liked to laugh,
he liked to drink, He liked woman, he liked music,
he liked thrills. You know, because by rights he had
no right to even be alive.
Speaker 5 (07:43):
As always, Lilla High lived like there was no tomorrow,
and thanks to his continued success and the watchful presence
of surgical Chief Owen Wangenstein, Lilahi rarely faced consequences for
his questionable behavior. In nineteen sixty six, at a mead
of the American College of Cardiology, Lilli High was elected
(08:03):
as the organization's president. The old generation that had once
called him a cowboy and a criminal had finally aged
out after years of working on the margins fighting for
legitimacy within the nascent field of cardiac surgery. Willihi wasn't
just accepted by his peers. He was chosen as their leader.
(08:29):
That same year, surgical chief Owen Wangenstein made an announcement
that would mark a seismic shift at the University of
Minnesota and in the life of Walt Lillehigh.
Speaker 8 (08:41):
As Wangstein approached seventy, he was no longer able to
do actual surgery, and he decided it's time to retire.
And for Lilla High, that was unthinkable.
Speaker 5 (08:52):
That's medical historian and plastic surgeon doctor Gerald Imber.
Speaker 8 (08:56):
Wal Illahigh never knew anyone as chief of surgery other
than Owen Wangenstein. The north star was always Wangenstein. He
brought something to surgery that was very rare. He was
a scientific surgeon.
Speaker 5 (09:12):
Wangenstein had run the department for nearly four decades. In
that time, the u of M had been transformed from
a largely unknown medical institution to the cardiac center of
the world, rivaled only by the Baylor College of Medicine,
where Michael de Bakey and Denton Cooley reigned in Houston.
Speaker 3 (09:31):
We sort of changed the nature of the training of surgeons.
Speaker 5 (09:35):
That's an archival recording of doctor Owen Wangenstein.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
Most people have learned surgery on the operating rome. We
taught our surgeons in the experimental laboratories.
Speaker 5 (09:47):
Walt Lilahigh embodied Wangenstein's ideal equal parts inventor and technical surgeon.
Speaker 8 (09:54):
When Wanngstein decided to retire, he was going to pass
the mantle through.
Speaker 6 (10:01):
Well with the University of Minnesota on the map. It
seemed natural. But the only person who thought it was
natural was Wengenstein.
Speaker 5 (10:11):
Here's Walt Lillehigh again.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
The search committee was loaded against Weinstein. They didn't watch
somebody that saw aggressive and horsemove indeutendant. They said they
didn't want another Weinstein.
Speaker 5 (10:26):
Lilleheim may not have been a natural fit for the
administrative role. He didn't enjoy his academic duties at the
u of M Medical School. He was notoriously bad with paperwork,
and he could barely manage his own office, let alone
an entire department. But he was the undeniable star of
the university hospital. According to Lillehigh, Although he expressed interest
(10:49):
in Wangenstein's job, even writing a letter to the dean
laying out his plans for the department, he wasn't even
granted an interview.
Speaker 8 (10:58):
It's as if you're saying, Joe DiMaggio want did it
be a batting coach.
Speaker 6 (11:03):
But we're not going to give him the job.
Speaker 3 (11:06):
It's crazy.
Speaker 9 (11:07):
The dean of the.
Speaker 8 (11:08):
Medical school had gone on record as saying Walt Illa
High is uncontrollable. He's a drunk and a womanizer, a
scare chaser, and he'll become chairman of the department over
my dead body.
Speaker 5 (11:23):
Instead of promoting a surgeon from within the department, the
selection committee looked elsewhere. In early nineteen sixty seven, they
settled on a young surgeon from the University of California,
San Francisco, who specialized in transplants of the abdominal organs.
Doctor John Nigerian may have lacked Walt Lillahig's fame and experience,
(11:47):
but he was imposing in his own way. At six
foot four, two hundred and fifty pounds, Nigerian had once
turned down an offer to play pro football for the
Chicago Bears. On June first, nineteen sixty seven, Nigerian arrived
at the u of M for his first day on
(12:07):
the job.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
When he got here and became chief, he was horrible.
Speaker 5 (12:14):
That's Walt Lilla High again.
Speaker 2 (12:15):
He took credit for everything, for all of the cardiac surgery.
He would always make the announcement to the newspapers, but
anything went wrong. Then it was a spokesman for the hospital,
exact opposite of Augustine. That was very obnoxious, very disfaceful.
Speaker 5 (12:32):
According to cardiac surgeon doctor Chip Bowman, it's possible that
Lila High didn't give Nigerian a fair shake.
Speaker 10 (12:39):
I think those probably are two of the biggest egos
I've ever seen in my life. Nigerian was doing groundbreaking
work too. I think they just were envious with one another.
Speaker 5 (12:51):
Litlahigh was devastated it being passed over. He didn't lash
out or explode, true to form, he ignored the blow
to his ego and pressed on with his work. But
Lila High had spent a lifetime damning up his disappointments
and frustrations. Now the dam was beginning to burst.
Speaker 7 (13:12):
I think the wild part of Walt at that point
became uncontained.
Speaker 5 (13:18):
That's author g Wayne Miller again.
Speaker 7 (13:20):
The thrill seeking and the not caring, and the having
fun and the calamities exemplified the wildness going uncontained.
Speaker 5 (13:30):
That summer, Walt, Lila High and his wife Kay were
driving their powerboat back from dinner with friends, coming back on.
Speaker 11 (13:40):
The Saint Croix river, driving at night and driving fast.
Speaker 5 (13:44):
That's Walt and Kay's son, doctor Craig Lilihide.
Speaker 11 (13:47):
Mom, who knew the river, she spent much more time
on it, had just stood up and said, Walt, I
think there's a sandbar up here. He hit it full
tilt and Mom was launched into the ashboard. She had
multiple facial injuries. Dad on a boat that wasn't a
great combination.
Speaker 5 (14:07):
Kay remained in the University hospital for ten days as
doctors performed reconstructive surgery on her face. On another day
that summer, the Lilla High's beautiful new house caught fire.
No one was injured, and the house was saved from destruction.
(14:33):
Many of the family's possessions, including Walt Lilla High's slides
and financial records, were damaged or destroyed. Years later, Kay
would look back on that summer as a series of
painful memories. Here's an archival recording of Kay Lillihigh.
Speaker 12 (14:51):
It was not a pleasant in China. That was the
year I had my accident, been our house burned. It's
funny summery daily Christmas Pike that year. I think I
dropped her some, but I keep gritting this ship. Also,
I got the data nineties.
Speaker 5 (15:08):
Accept Not long after Nigerian took over at the U
of M, lill High announced that he would be leaving
his alma mater to run a surgical department of his
own at the New York Hospital Cornell Medical Center. Cornell
was precisely the kind of conservative Ivy League establishment Lilla
(15:29):
High had spent his career squaring off against. This new
job would bring him the prestige and the paycheck that
he deserved. In turn, he'd bring Cornell into the new
frontier of cardiac surgery.
Speaker 12 (15:44):
We went to New York where ducked his houses out
along ways, and I had just been in very bad exit,
so I kind of with it.
Speaker 6 (15:53):
Anyhow, I didn't want to go.
Speaker 5 (15:56):
It had been a hell of a summer for k
hell of a marriage. In fact, her husband may have
been a genius, but he was not an easy man
to be married to.
Speaker 13 (16:06):
I could spend a lot of time in clinical and research,
so it wasn't much time.
Speaker 9 (16:11):
I don't know. I bet my wife just trust me as.
Speaker 2 (16:14):
A favorite home.
Speaker 5 (16:17):
In the end, Kay decided that she and the kids
would stay behind in Saint Paul. As Lilahai's final day
at the U of m approached. A dispute arose regarding
the equipment that filled his laboratory. Lilihi wanted to bring
his lab resources with him to New York.
Speaker 11 (16:39):
Dad felt they were his. They were bought on his grants.
Speaker 5 (16:43):
That's doctor Craig Lilihigh again.
Speaker 10 (16:45):
Well.
Speaker 11 (16:45):
The university felt otherwise.
Speaker 5 (16:48):
To prevent him from taking anything out of the lab. Unnoticed,
Nigerian had the equipment inventoried before he left Minnesota. Lili
High and his team rented moving vans and under cover
of darkness, drove them to the university.
Speaker 11 (17:05):
What they did is they loaded all the stuff into
the U haul drugs and drove them to New York.
Clearly this was done off hours because no one was around.
Speaker 5 (17:15):
When Djerion arrived at work the following day, he'd be
enraged to find Lila High's lab completely empty except for
one thing.
Speaker 11 (17:24):
They left a vase with a single rose in the
center of the lab and the rest of the place
was cleared out. Some might characterize it as thievery, but
whatever it was that did happen.
Speaker 5 (17:36):
Litla High hadn't lost his flare for the dramatic. He
arrived in New York in the fall of nineteen sixty seven.
Striding through the hospital with his entourage of cowboy surgeons,
(17:57):
Little High turned heads from the start.
Speaker 8 (18:00):
He brought with him seventeen people on his staff, and
they included Whites, Blacks, Jews, Hindus, Japanese, everybody.
Speaker 5 (18:10):
That's doctor Gerald Imber again.
Speaker 6 (18:12):
Because they were all people live Walt and Wangenstein thought
was smart or or had good ideas, and they stood
out like a saw thumb in New York Hospital in
in nineteen sixty seven, which was exceedingly waspy enclave at
the time.
Speaker 5 (18:30):
Early in his tenure at New York Hospital Cornell Medical Center,
Lillahi did exactly what he was hired to do. He
worked on the cutting edge, making history and headlines along
the way. In December, the world's first successful human heart
transplant was performed in Cape Town, South Africa. The procedure
(18:51):
had been pioneered by two of Lila High's trainees, Christian
Barnard and Norm Shumway. In June of the following year,
lille High himself entered the heart transplant arena. His fourth
transplant in February of nineteen sixty nine was a landmark
operation in its own right. Lili High's team removed not
(19:15):
just the heart, but also the liver, kidneys and corneas
from a single donor and transplanted them into six different recipients,
extending the lives of four patients and giving sight to
two others. On Christmas Day nineteen sixty nine, he transplanted
a new heart and lungs into a forty three year
(19:36):
old New jerseyman who was dying of emphysema. This was
only the second heart lung transplant in history. Denton Cooley
down in Houston had gotten there first, but try as
he might to stay out ahead in the heart race,
Lillihigh had lost.
Speaker 13 (19:52):
A step, but that time was losing his vision.
Speaker 5 (19:58):
That's an archival recording of cardiothoracic surgeon and Lilla High trainee,
doctor Richard dwall.
Speaker 13 (20:05):
I think the radiation that he had had in cataracts
and so on, so that he really couldn't see to operate.
Speaker 5 (20:10):
And yet another way, Lilla High found himself debilitated by
the aggressive cancer treatment he'd undergone two decades earlier. His
ability to operate was under threat, and yet operating was
the only thing Lila High enjoyed about his new job.
He viewed his administrative duties with disdain.
Speaker 14 (20:30):
Being chairman of the department is terrible job.
Speaker 5 (20:33):
That's doctor Lilli High again.
Speaker 14 (20:35):
Committee meetings are endless, all his little problems that take
up your time. So and so I've been wrong and
so and so on. But to speak to this person
or that person, then it's terrible.
Speaker 5 (20:47):
The rapid deterioration of his vision and his new title
weren't the only ways in which Lila High had changed.
Without the structure of his home life with Kay and
their four kids, and without the mentorship of his old boss,
Owen Wangenstein, Lilli High was unmoored.
Speaker 7 (21:04):
The wildness became uncontrollable.
Speaker 5 (21:07):
In his biography of Lilla High, g Wayne Miller describes
him projecting a slide of a topless woman in his
first lecture to Cornell Medical students.
Speaker 7 (21:16):
His opening presentation using a Playboy centerfold. You know, like
this is not what you do when you go anywhere,
but certainly not too on Ivy League facility. He didn't care.
He was into a place in his life where he
just wanted to do what he wanted to do to,
you know, the emotional harm of people around him who
(21:39):
were close, who he loved, and who loved him.
Speaker 5 (21:44):
Lilla High was known to frequent a bar and restaurant
on East seventieth called the Recovery Room. There he surrounded
himself with eager young residents and attractive nurses. He had affairs.
He threw frequent parties in his lavish four bedroom apartment.
Speaker 6 (22:05):
There were nights when he was the last person in
the bar.
Speaker 5 (22:08):
That's doctor Gerald Imber again.
Speaker 8 (22:10):
And there were nights when neighbors heard fights between Walt
and Kay when she was there visiting. One night in particular,
he was banging on the door three o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 6 (22:21):
She wouldn't let him in.
Speaker 5 (22:22):
At the hospital, he developed a reputation for avoiding meetings.
He was on the road much more than ever before
in his career, lecturing in medical schools all over the world,
often to the detriment of his own work. Lili High
was rapidly wearing out his welcome in New York. According
to former resident doctor Daniel A. Gore, just months into
(22:45):
Lilla High's tenure at Cornell, doctors were already discussing the
certainty of his early departure.
Speaker 6 (22:52):
The handwriting was already on the wall.
Speaker 8 (22:54):
I don't know Walt was aware of his failing eyesight
as much as everyone around him was.
Speaker 6 (23:02):
But when you reach a point when a man.
Speaker 8 (23:04):
Is professor of surgery and the residents feel they have
to send a senior residence in the room with him
so he doesn't hurt someone, things are bad.
Speaker 5 (23:14):
In the spring of nineteen seventy, a little over two
years since he'd arrived in New York to much excitement
and fanfare, lili High was notified that he would be
relieved of his duties as the surgical chief and the
chairman of the department. To those who worked with him,
the news came as no surprise. The only person who
(23:35):
felt blindsided was Walt Lillehigh. This time around, he didn't
seek a position at another hospital or abscond with his
lab equipment. Stripped of his titles, lili High continued to
operate and lecture at Cornell for as long as they'd
have him. Because there was another more dire problem looming
on the horizon. Little High had always lacked for organizationals
(24:00):
gills back at the U of M. His financial record
keeping comprised hand scrawled note cards crammed into shoe boxes.
Speaker 15 (24:08):
It's been an absolutely impossible problem to keep my desk clean.
It's something like trying to cleep clearing I think in
the Amazon jungle or in the Zambizi River.
Speaker 5 (24:19):
This harmless quirk took on grave significance in nineteen sixty
nine when he learned he might face legal action for
years of unpaid taxes. Lillehigh was offered a plea deal,
but he turned it down. On April thirteenth, nineteen seventy two,
he was charged with filing false and fraudulent income tax
(24:40):
returns over the course of five years in Minnesota.
Speaker 11 (24:44):
I remember going through these bills and Dad, yeah, these
are from ten years ago.
Speaker 5 (24:48):
That's doctor Craig Lillehigh again.
Speaker 11 (24:51):
He said, yeah, yeah, well I I haven't filed that yet.
So he was always way behind his taxes and other
things took priority.
Speaker 5 (24:59):
And here's doctor Richard Dwall again.
Speaker 13 (25:02):
Knowing Wald as well as I did. I really don't
think he intentionally avoided paying income to Texas. He just
didn't care about it. This was his mentality at the time.
Lived today for the important things. If you don't think
it's important, forget about it.
Speaker 5 (25:18):
In early January of the following year, the government's case
against lille High went to trial. Lillehigh commuted to court
from his home in Saint Paul. He'd sit in silence
as the prosecution presented hundreds of instances of his poor judgment.
(25:42):
He had deducted home television repair costs as office supplies,
boat storage charges as attorney's fees, and veterinary treatment for
the family cat as pharmaceutical supplies. But what made headlines
were the payments to women who alleged that they'd had
intimate relationships with Ilahigh. The most egregious of these was
(26:03):
the one hundred dollars deducted as typing expenses paid to
a sex worker during a Las Vegas medical convention.
Speaker 11 (26:11):
It was some of the other behaviors that were uncovered
with other women, and that was obviously very disheartening from
my mom. I was away at school, and in fact
I remember they had a little kiosk in Harvard Square
where I'd get the paper to be able to read
about it. Because Mom wasn't very happy to talk about it.
Dad wasn't going to talk about it much either.
Speaker 5 (26:35):
Lilahi's lawyer argued that rather than owing the government hundreds
of thousands of dollars, Lillahigh was in fact owed money
the royalties for medical patents he donated to the U
of M. This may have been accurate, but coming after
weeks of damning testimony and evidence that showed flagrant instances
of tax fraud, it'd be a difficult pill for the
(26:57):
jury to swallow. On February sixteenth, Lila High arrived in
court to hear the verdict. Though Kay had been absent
throughout the trial, she was with him now. Little High
stood as the court clerk read out the jury's decision
(27:18):
on each of the five counts.
Speaker 16 (27:21):
Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty.
Speaker 5 (27:42):
In the weeks that followed, the medical establishment would rush
to cast Lilla High from its ranks. In March, his
license to practice medicine was suspended by the Minnesota Board
of Medical Examiners. Members of the New York Board and
the American College of Surgeons attempted to suspend Little High
from these bodies as well. It didn't matter. Little High's
(28:05):
eyesight was compromised, and though he was just fifty four
years old, it was no longer safe for him to operate.
He served six months of court mandated charitable medical service
at a VA hospital in Brooklyn, rather than leading operations.
Little High would assist the VA surgeons.
Speaker 11 (28:27):
Dad Dad was low. I remember visiting him in New
York during that time and he never shared his downs
with me, but you could tell that it was a
low point. He felt badly about it.
Speaker 5 (28:46):
As the end of the year approached, Little High scrubbed
up one final time, just as he had many times
over the sixth months prior, Lillahi checked his ego at
the oar door and assisted his junior colleagues. He already
(29:07):
had a cataract operation on the books. Lilahai knew his
days as a surgeon were at an end. When the
operation was over, Lillihaigh announced his retirement quietly to the
young surgeon standing beside him.
Speaker 2 (29:25):
Kay Colina editor, I said, this is going to be
the last operation, because I'm going to look at this.
Speaker 14 (29:31):
Care act removed in em tu trick.
Speaker 2 (29:35):
Sir said that was my last up race.
Speaker 5 (29:44):
Lillahi moved back home to Saint Paul, Minnesota. His legacy
was tarnished, if not destroyed completely, But as he stepped
out of the limelight and into a life of relative obscurity,
he found that a new opportunity layout before him. His family,
whom he'd so often overlooked through the years, was somehow
(30:08):
still standing strong at his side. Perhaps now he could
do right by them. Throughout the nineteen seventies, the practice
(30:28):
of heart transplantation had stopped nearly altogether. At Stanford University,
one surgeon persisted. Doctor Norm Shamwey, the man who pioneered
the human heart transplant, continued to practice and refine the
procedure in the face of legal conflicts and controversy. In
(30:49):
the late nineteen seventies, the discovery of an immunosuppressant called
psyclosporin changed everything.
Speaker 17 (30:58):
In December of nineteen eighty, the FI permitted us to
use it in clinical heart transplantation. And then the results immediately,
we're getting something like eighty to ninety percent one year survival.
Speaker 5 (31:11):
That's an archival recording of doctor Shumway.
Speaker 17 (31:14):
Then all of the other programs in heart transplantation began
to come to life.
Speaker 5 (31:21):
Today, more than forty five hundred heart transplants are performed
every year in the US alone, and the average life
expectancy for recipients is well over ten years. The long
term success of heart transplantation is in large part thanks
to the radical perseverance of Norm Shumway, the life of
(31:43):
the man who won the transplant race took a different
course entirely.
Speaker 18 (31:49):
Have you ever regretted this at the times when you
have been attacked by people in gutten mail where they've
said this was an unfortunate thing, this heart transplanting and
on it have been sorry, mate.
Speaker 19 (32:01):
I have regretted the whole affair when I saw how
much my children suffered. As it is out of the place,
taking up really intimate family life. I regret it when
I realized how much my family suffet sit us out
of this.
Speaker 5 (32:18):
After his divorce, Christian Barnard was married twice more, to
a nineteen year old Johannesburg heiress in nineteen seventy and
to a twenty four year old model in nineteen eighty eight.
Rheumatoid arthritis wreaked havoc on his hands until he stopped
operating altogether in nineteen eighty three. While his younger brother
(32:40):
Marius developed the first critical illness insurance program in the
world and fought apartheid as a member of the South
African Parliament, Christian Barnard continued to bask in his celebrity,
publishing health books and novels, and drawing criticism for his
endorsement of a face cream that promised to reverse aging.
(33:00):
Here's Norm Shumway again.
Speaker 17 (33:02):
It's too bad because I think Bernard was a very
capable cardiac surgeon in his later practice. But I think
his contribution was awakening of the neurosurgical community into the
concept of brain death. I think we can say he was,
in that sense a true pioneer.
Speaker 5 (33:27):
At the rapidly growing Texas Heart Institute in Houston Denton,
Cooley continued to perform more heart operations than any surgeon alive.
In two thousand and one, he and his team hit
the unprecedented milestone of one hundred thousand open heart surgeries.
He was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President
(33:48):
Ronald Reagan and the National Medal of Technology by President
Bill Clinton. He continued operating until his eighty seventh birthday,
nearly one hundred years.
Speaker 20 (34:01):
Our country has been blessed with the endless talents and
dedication of doctor Michael DeBakey.
Speaker 5 (34:06):
That's President George W. Bush presenting DeBakey with the Congressional
Gold Medal.
Speaker 20 (34:12):
He has dedicated his career to a truly noble ambition,
bettering the life of his fellow men. So doctor DeBakey,
on behalf of all those you pealed and those you've
inspired me. Thank you, May God bless you.
Speaker 5 (34:25):
In addition to the Congressional Gold Medal, DeBakey was honored
with the National Medal of Science, the Presidential Medal of Freedom,
and Alaskar Reward. From the development of the mass Unit
to the birth of Medicare, Debake's influence extended to all
facets of American healthcare in the twentieth century and into
(34:46):
the present day. Nicknamed the Texas Tornado, DeBakey was one
of the most trusted doctors in modern history, consulting in
the personal medical care of Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon,
as well as President Boris Yelson of Russia. After saving
the life of the Duke of Windsor, the former King
(35:07):
Edward the eighth of England, DeBakey was bestowed with yet
another fitting nickname, Maestro, and while he worked down the
street from his protege, Denton Cooley, the two men did
not talk for the better part of four decades, and
yet to this day, Tobaky's son Michael, and many of
his friends and family insists there never was a feud.
(35:31):
Feud is not the word I would have used.
Speaker 11 (35:33):
I think that's a bad description of the problem.
Speaker 5 (35:37):
On the last day of two thousand and five, DeBakey
was preparing a speech when he suffered a dissection of
the aorda. Well aware of the abysmal odds of surviving
serious vascular surgery at age ninety seven, he told his
family it simply pulled a muscle and ignored the pain.
For the next month, he refused to undergo surgery. By
(36:01):
February ninth, DeBakey was in critical condition as he lay
unresponsive at Methodist Hospital. His family and surgical team, led
by lifelong bail or surgeon doctor George p Noon, made
the decision to operate replacing Debake's ascending aorda with a
dacron graft. It's a procedure pioneered decades earlier by debake
(36:25):
and Denton Cooley, and it saved DeBakey's life. After he
was discharged and recovering at home, DeBakey received a visit
from an unexpected guest.
Speaker 21 (36:38):
That he really did want to make amends.
Speaker 5 (36:40):
That's doctor Louise Cooley Davis, a daughter of Denton Cooley.
Speaker 21 (36:45):
He wanted to apologize and give his respect to debate.
When doctor de Bakey recovered from all this, it was
as if he had been born again and forgot that
he was mad at my father.
Speaker 5 (37:03):
In October of two thousand and seven, at a meeting
of the Denton A. Cooley Cardiovascular Surgical Society, a ninety
nine year old Michael de Bakey entered the auditorium in
a motorized scooter and rolled to the stage to accept
a Lifetime Achievement award. Here's trauma and cardiovascular surgeon doctor
(37:23):
Kenneth Maddox.
Speaker 9 (37:25):
There was not a dry eye in the room. Everybody
was standing on the tables and chairs, and there must
have been twenty thirty minutes of ovation. And when the
ovation stopped, Denton had a prepared script and could not
finish it. That's when Denton said, I'm glad our feud
(37:45):
is over, and doctor DeBakey said, at that point, Den,
we never had a feud.
Speaker 5 (37:55):
In April of nineteen seventy nine, Walt Kay and their
son Craig Lilihigh attended an annual meeting of the American
Association for Thoracic Surgery hundreds of heart surgeons were present,
some of whom confessed to feeling uncomfortable seeing Lila High
in the audience.
Speaker 11 (38:14):
He was viewed very much as a paria in cardiac
surgery and boy, that had been his life.
Speaker 5 (38:20):
That's doctor Craig Lilahigh again.
Speaker 11 (38:22):
I remember the darkness of the room, the lights, the
big crowd in there, and it was the presidential address
that doctor Kirkland was giving.
Speaker 5 (38:30):
Doctor John Kirklin was an eminent cardiac surgeon at the
Mayo Clinic and a former colleague and competitor of Lilla High's.
For a time in nineteen fifty five and nineteen fifty six,
he was the only other surgeon in the world performing
open heart operations.
Speaker 11 (38:47):
And he started to tell a story about the beginnings
of cardiac surgery and use that opportunity to credit Dadis
as one of the great pioneers.
Speaker 5 (39:00):
Of Walt Lillehi. Kirkland said, he always was and still
is a great hero of mine because of his enormous
ability and warm friendship.
Speaker 11 (39:11):
This is a giant. Kirkland was the president of the
Society at the time, and it was a giant saying
here's our pioneer and recognizing him, and they said, please
stand up.
Speaker 5 (39:27):
Lillehi got to his feet as the crowd of former
colleagues and rivals, trainees and enemies delivered a thunderous applause,
welcoming the disgraced surgeon back into their ranks. By then,
(39:53):
the heyday of the cowboy cardiac surgeon was already over,
consigned to history and myth. With greater oversight and the
rise of interventional cardiology, the nature of the job has changed,
and while patients are safer today than ever before, the
world may never again see the likes of Walt Lilla High,
(40:16):
Michael de Bakey, Denton Cooley, Norm Shumway, and Christian Barnard.
Speaker 22 (40:23):
When I entered the training program through a heart surgeon,
you will like a fighter pilot.
Speaker 5 (40:29):
That's cardiac surgeon, Doctor Eric Rose.
Speaker 22 (40:32):
Every mission that you went on required enormous skill, and
it really was centered in you. What's evolved now though,
I think being a heart surgeon is more like being
an airplane pilot and a commercial airline. There are systems
of support and there's so much experience worth doing it,
and heart surgery now is a team sport.
Speaker 5 (40:55):
And here's doctor Gerald Imber again there's no way.
Speaker 8 (40:58):
You could experiment this way in any hospital and get
away with it. But this was in the mid twentieth
century and medicine was truly marching forward, and people took chances,
and people died, but in the long run, lots of
people lived.
Speaker 5 (41:22):
Edward Darval had just lost his wife and daughter in
a horrific car accident when he was asked to make
the most difficult decision of his life. After a moment's reflection,
he agreed to donate his daughter Denise's heart to extend
the life of Louis Wishkansky. Marcel de Rutter lay dying
(41:43):
when he told his wife that he was happy to
serve as a guinea pig for Michael de Bakey's experimental
ELVAD so that the doctor might learn something that would
save someone else. After losing their thirteen month old son,
Gregory Lyman and Francis Gliddon did not hesitate to let
Walt Lillahie reopen the boy's chest and examine the sutures
(42:06):
in his heart because it might prevent other young parents
from having to say goodbye to their child. The history
of open heart surgery is written on death certificates and headstones.
It is the history of dying patients and their desperate families.
Unfathomably courageous men and women who faced impossible choices and
(42:30):
chose to act not just to save themselves, but to
save those who would come after them. So when we
tell the story of the Cardiac Cowboys, we're speaking not
only of the bold surgeons who pioneered a new field.
We're talking about the Glittons, the Richmond's, the Thompson's, the Darvals,
(42:51):
the Washkanskis, the d Rudders and the Carks, and the
thousands of other families who signed up to be first,
who took on all the risk, knowing that even if
they did not survive, their hearts would change the world.
(43:34):
Cardiac Cowboys is a production of iHeart Podcasts, OsO Studios
and Thirteenth Lake Media. We're presented by Chris Pine and
written and narrated by me Jamie n Appley. Our executive
producers are Christina Everett for iHeart Podcasts, Dub Cornette and
Jason Ross for OsO Studios. Doctor Gerald Imber, author of
(43:59):
Cardiac cow Boys, The Heroic Invention of Heart Surgery, Doctor
eric A. Rose, John Mankowitz, Joshua Paul Johnson and myself.
James A. Smith is our supervising producer. Editing and sound
design by Joshua Paul Johnson. Our composer is David Mansfield.
(44:19):
Our cover artwork is designed by Alexander Smith. Archival materials
courtesy of the University of Minnesota Archives, University of Minnesota
Twin Cities Special Collections, University of Rhode Island Library, and
g Wayne Miller, author of the Walt Lilla High biography
King of Hearts, The True Story of the Maverick who
(44:41):
pioneered open Heart Surgery. Special thanks to Edie Blasco, Hannah Comstock,
Lisa Edelstein, Antonia debarros Ian Gottler, Clark Harris, Josh Littman,
g Wayne Miller, David Stratha, and Saxon Trainer. For more
(45:03):
information on the first cardiac surgeons, check out doctor Gerald
Imber's book Cardiac Cowboys, The Heroic Invention of Heart Surgery,
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