Historical perspective of The American Association for Thoracic Surgery: John W. Kirklin, MD (1917-2004).

摘要

When Dr Kirklin gave the Caldwell lecture at Harvard University in 1967, Dr Robert Gross,1 a world famous heart and pediatric surgery pioneer himself, introduced him and commented, "Dr Kirklin is widely regarded as the dean of American surgery today," In 1998 William Roberts, MD,2 editor of the American Journal of Cardiology, stated, "John Kirklin is the greatest scientific cardiac surgeon of the century and his contributions will continue to be influential many decades after he is gone." In his book about C Walton Lillehei, King of Hearts, Wayne Miller3 refers to Dr Kirklin in the 1970s as "arguably the best practicing open heart surgeon anywhere, He was one of cardiac surgery's most accomplished researchers, a scientist whose mind was sometimes compared, flatteringly, to a computer."