Dr. Norman E. Shumway had just turned 83 on Feb. 9 when he succumbed to complications caused by cancer, said the Stanford University School of Medicine.
In 1968, he performed a successful heart transplant on 54-year-old steel worker Mike Kasperak. After surgery, the patient lived for 14 days with the new heart, reports HealthDay News
After initial excitement over the procedure, the high number of deaths following surgeries caused cardiologists to shun the operation.
But Shumway carried on with the transplants, and helped improve the procedure. To date, almost 60,000 Americans have received heart transplants.
"Many people gave it up when they thought it was too difficult, but Dr. Shumway had the persistence and vision that it could work. His determination to make heart transplantation work was absolutely crucial," Dr. Bruce Reitz, professor of cardiothoracic surgery at Stanford, said in a statement.
