Horace Smithy: pioneer heart surgeon.

Horace Smithy, a native Virginian, received his surgical education in Charleston, then joined the Medical College of South Carolina faculty. He developed a valvulotome, which was used to perform a successful mitral valvulotomy on a 21-year-old woman on January 30, 1948. Smithy himself suffered from rheumatic aortic stenosis and tried unsuccessfully to convince Alfred Blalock to use his valvulotome and operate on him. Tragically, he died of progressive congestive heart failure at the age of 34 (on October 28, 1948), 270 days after his first operation. Horace Smithy was unquestionably an innovative pioneering cardiac surgeon who performed the first successful mitral valve operation of the "modern" era. 2010 The Society of Thoracic Surgeons. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Citation

Fred A Crawford. Horace Smithy: pioneer heart surgeon. The Annals of thoracic surgery. 2010 Jun;89(6):2067-71

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PMID: 20494095

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