“The Michigan Heart: The World’s First Successful Open Heart Operation? Part I”, 2002-07 ():
[part 2] In 1952, a machine built by General Motors in Detroit made medical history. Dr. Forest Dewey Dodrill used it to perform the world’s first successful open heart operation. The news media and others referred to this mechanical device as the Michigan Heart, because it was built and used in the state of Michigan and because the project was partially funded by the Michigan Heart Association…Dodrill used the Michigan Heart to bypass the patient’s left ventricle for 50 minutes while he opened the patient’s left atrium and worked to repair the mitral valve.
There have been a number of books and many articles written about other open heart surgery pioneers such as Drs. John H. Gibbon Junior, C. Walton Lillehei, and John W. Kirklin, who all followed Dodrill with reports of their own successful open heart surgeries.
Almost nothing, however, has been written about Dodrill since that first case was reported. Now, 50 years later, it is time for that oversight to be corrected.
…A few days before Dodrill was scheduled to perform a heart operation using the Michigan Heart on a young child, Hughes realized that none of the highly polished S-shaped stainless steel valved cannula they had for cannulating the subclavian artery seemed to be the appropriate size for this patient. Early that morning, Hughes drove over to his laboratory at the General Motors Research Center where he discovered a labor strike in progress. Among those hourly workers who were walking the picket line were 4 or 5 highly skilled machinists who worked for Frederick Ross, foreman of the General Motors Research instrument shop. Hughes spotted them and explained to one of the machinists what he needed for the pending surgery on the little girl. This man talked it over with his colleagues, who said they would have to discuss it with the union person in charge of the picket line, who in turn gave his permission for them to return to the shop inside the picket line and make the needed cannula. They all got into Hughes’ car, crossed the picket line, and headed for the shop. Around 4:00 PM, when they had completed the job, Hughes dropped them off and they rejoined the picket line. The operation, as Hughes recalls, was successful.