Oregon Public Broadcasting

Fifty years ago this week, a surgeon in Portland made medical history, implanting the first artificial heart valve.

Dr. Albert Starr explained on OPB’s Think Out Loud why that was a key milestone for heart surgery.     

Albert Starr “Suppose you accepted someone for an operation, and worked on their valve and couldn’t repair it properly. Under those circumstances the person might not survive operation. Or if they did they’d be very ill afterwards, you could make things worse. So even to do valve repair, having an artificial valve in the background you could use as backup, was a very important part of being able to explore the reparative process.”  

Starr’s partner in constructing the device was an engineer named Lowell Edwards. 

They also pioneered a tracking system for long-term monitoring of patients who had their device implanted.

Starr still practices at the Providence Heart and Vascular Institute in Portland.