| Norman Shumway | |
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Norman Shumway
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| Born | February 9, 1923 Kalamazoo, Michigan |
| Died | February 10, 2006 (aged 83) Palo Alto, California |
| Nationality | United States |
| Fields | Surgeon |
| Known for | Organ transplant Ciclosporin |
Norman Edward Shumway (February 9, 1923 – February 10, 2006) was a pioneer of heart surgery at Stanford University.
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Shumway was born in Kalamazoo, Michigan. He attended the University of Michigan for one year as an undergraduate until he was drafted by the Army in 1943, which sent him to John Tarleton Agricultural College in Stephenville, Texas for engineering training. He then underwent Army Specialized Training, which included nine months of pre-medical training at Baylor University, followed by enrollment at Vanderbilt University for medical school. He received his M.D. from Vanderbilt in 1949. He did his residency at the University of Minnesota, and was awarded a surgical doctorate in 1956. In 1958, he began working as an instructor in surgery at Stanford Hospital in San Francisco, California, and later, in Palo Alto when the hospital was moved.
Shumway became chief of the division of cardiothoracic surgery at Stanford in 1965. In 1974, he negotiated the creation of a separate Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery, which he chaired until his retirement in 1993. He spent many years training promising young residents of cardiothoracic surgery at Stanford University.
In collaboration with Randall B. Griepp[1], he was the first doctor to successfully carry out a heart transplant operation in the United States in 1968, after Christiaan Barnard's 1967 operation in South Africa. The early years of the procedure were difficult, with few patients surviving for long. Shumway was the only American surgeon to continue performing the operation after others abandoned it after poor results.
In the 1970s he and his team refined the operation, tackling the problems of rejection and the necessity for potentially dangerous drugs to suppress the immune system. In particular he pioneered the use of cyclosporine, instead of traditional drugs, which made the operation safer.
In his later years Shumway was the first recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award[2] given by the International Society for Heart & Lung Transplantation and set up a foundation to provide support and resources in education.[3] He also received the 1994 Lister Medal.[4]
Shumway's marriage to the former Mary Lou Stuurmans ended in divorce. The couple had four children, one of whom directs heart and lung transplantation at the University of Minnesota.
He died of lung cancer in Palo Alto in 2006, on the day after his 83rd birthday.
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