MPR’s Cathy Wurzer interviews Dr. Chip Bolman about the fifty-year anniversary of first open heart surgery. The world's first successful open-heart surgery was performed at the University of Minnesota. A team led by Doctor F. John Lewis operated on a five-year-old girl who was born with a hole in her heart. The girl survived and grew up to have two kids of her own. Since then, advances in medicine and medical technology have revolutionized the treatment available to people with heart trouble.
Dr. Chip Bolman is the C. Walton and Richard C. Lillehei professor and chief of the Division of Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery at the University of Minnesota Medical School. He's on the line now.