President Russell M. Nelson, pioneering heart surgeon, donates medical journals to University of Utah
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President Russell M. Nelson, who helped develop the heart-lung machine that made open-heart surgery possible and performed the first such operation west of the Mississippi in 1955, donated his medical journals Wednesday to the University of Utah’s School of Medicine.
The medical pioneer, who turns 99 on Sept. 9 and is the president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, made reports of more than 7,000 operations he performed across 31 years as a heart surgeon.
“Whenever a surgical operation is done in a major hospital, a report of that operation is dictated by the surgeon,” President Nelson explained. “I kept copies of all my operative records from 1954 to 1984, when I was called to devote full-time service as a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. … I am sure the keeper of these records will be mindful of the confidential relationships between doctors and their patients. Therefore, these reports can be made available on an as-needed basis.”
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President Nelson presented 35 bound volumes to university President Taylor Randall and other university officials. The volumes include his surgical reports, a master patient index and his Ph.D. thesis. They also contain his research, which includes more than 100 scientific publications.
“We can’t quite describe the impact of you on our field, the things that (other doctors) and I take for granted every single day when we’re in the operating room. We are lost without the work that you and other folks at your era did for us,” said Dr. Craig Selzman, who holds the Dr. Russell M. Nelson and Dantzel W. Nelson Presidential Endowed Chair at the University of Utah.
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President Nelson is known for performing the first pediatric open-heart surgery in 1956 and the first surgical intervention for tricuspid regurgitation, a disorder that allows blood to flow backward into the right upper heart chamber, in 1960.
Selzman previously said President Nelson is “right up there along with the biggest legends in cardiothoracic surgery.”
President Nelson also provided a digitized version of each volume. The only surgical reports not included are those done while he was a visiting professor of surgery in Mexico, Chile, Uruguay and the People’s Republic of China.
President Nelson performed a 1972 heart bypass on President Spencer W. Kimball, who was strengthened by the operation and lived to be the 12th president of the church. President Nelson is the church’s 17th president.
When President Nelson entered medical school at the University of Utah, operating on a live heart sounded like science fiction. Textbooks at the time said to do so would be medical malpractice.
President Nelson was part of the heart-lung machine developed by a team of doctors at the University of Minnesota. The machine revolutionized medicine by taking over for the heart and lungs during an operation. A tube pumps blood out of the body, diverting it from the heart and into a machine next to the operating table. An oxygenator strips out carbon dioxide and delivers oxygen to the blood. Then the machine returns the blood to the aorta, which sends it coursing to the patient’s brain, fingers and toes.
He presented the records with his wife, Sister Wendy Nelson, in the Church Administration Building on Temple Square in Salt Lake City. The meeting was led by Elder Dale G. Renlund of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, a former heart transplant surgeon and University of Utah graduate.
President Nelson called the presentation “a historic point in my life.”
President Nelson earned a bachelor’s degree from the university in 1945. He earned his medical degree from the University of Utah, too, graduating first in his class at age 22 in 1947. He completed a Ph.D. at Minnesota in 1954.
He returned to Salt Lake City in 1955 and served for 17 years as director of the university’s Thoracic Surgery Residency, where he trained dozens of surgeons.
“I am deeply grateful for the important role the University of Utah played in my education and surgical career,” he said. “Wendy and I are pleased to donate these valuable records to the University of Utah. Thank you for accepting these tangible tracts of my surgical career.”
The dean of the medical school, Dr. Sam Finlayson, and a member of the university’s board of trustees, Katie Eccles, also attended the presentation.
Randall, the University of Utah’s president, thanked President Nelson for the records, which he said display “incredible inventiveness” and reveal many firsts in the history of cardiothoracic surgery.
“As we appropriately allow individuals to study your records, they will see how you were inspired and (will) remember that you were not only a great healer of people but you’ve been a great healer of souls,” Randall said.
