“The Mechanical Heart” also known as the Michigan Heart had the ability to bypass the right and left side of the patient’s heart allowing surgeons a “dry” field on which to work. The Dodrill-GMR heart project was a collaborative effort led by Dr. Forest Dewey Dodrill of Harper Hospital in Detroit, Michigan and General Motors Research Laboratory.
The Dodrill-GMR Heart was used in the first successful open heart operation July 3, 1952. The patient, a forty-one year old male, had a deformed mitral valve which was successfully repaired
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