"In Ticker, Texas Monthly executive editor and two-time National Magazine Award winner Mimi Swartz takes readers behind the scenes of perhaps the greatest medical and technological quest of our time, as she follows pioneering heart surgeon O. H. "Bud" Frazier and his partner, Dr. Billy Cohn, in Frazier's lifelong effort to develop, perfect, and successfully implant an artificial heart in patients whose hearts are failing. In Ticker, renowned journalist Mimi Swartz takes readers on an incredible behind-the-scenes journey into a heart surgeon's epic quest to develop an artificial heart--a reliable, implantable device that would extend the lives of patients who have no other recourse. As director of cardiovascular surgery at the Texas Heart Institute, and arguably the foremost heart surgeon in the world, Bud Frazier's lifelong mission, since his stint in the war in Vietnam, has been to save lives by creating an artificial heart for those whose hearts are failing. There are 50,000 people on the waiting list for a heart transplant at any given time, with fewer than 2,500 transplants performed each year. Chronicling the evolution of cardiac medicine, from pioneering efforts in open heart surgery and bypass operations under Michael DeBakey and Denton Cooley, tothe advent of valve replacement and heart transplants, and protege Bud Frazier's introduction of the Left Ventricle Assist Device (or LVAD) that Vice President Cheney used for a decade before his successful heart transplant, Swartz follows Frazier and his partner Billy Cohn as they feverishly design, develop, and test new heart designs"--Provided by publisher.
Traces the medical and technological quest to develop a successful artificial heart implant, chronicling the evolution of cardiac medicine while exploring the pioneering work of two Texas Heart Institute innovators.
A two-time National Magazine Award winner traces the medical and technological quest to develop a successful artificial heart implant, chronicling the evolution of cardiac medicine while exploring the pioneering work of two Texas Heart Institute innovators.
It wasn’t supposed to be this hard. If America could send a man to the moon, shouldn’t the best surgeons in the world be able to build an artificial heart? In Ticker, Texas Monthly executive editor and two time National Magazine Award winner Mimi Swartz shows just how complex and difficult it can be to replicate one of nature’s greatest creations.
Part investigative journalism, part medical mystery, Ticker is a dazzling story of modern innovation, recounting fifty years of false starts, abysmal failures and miraculous triumphs, as experienced by one the world’s foremost heart surgeons, O.H. “Bud” Frazier, who has given his life to saving the un-savable.
His journey takes him from a small town in west Texas to one of the country’s most prestigious medical institutions, The Texas Heart Institute, from the halls of Congress to the animal laboratories where calves are fitted with new heart designs. The roadblocks to success —medical setbacks, technological shortcomings, government regulations – are immense. Still, Bud and his associates persist, finding inspiration in the unlikeliest of places. A field beside the Nile irrigated by an Archimedes screw. A hardware store in Brisbane, Australia. A seedy bar on the wrong side of Houston.
Until post WWII, heart surgery did not exist. Ticker provides a riveting history of the pioneers who gave their all to the courageous process of cutting into the only organ humans cannot live without. Heart surgeons Michael DeBakey and Denton Cooley, whose feud dominated the dramatic beginnings of heart surgery. Christian Barnaard, who changed the world overnight by performing the first heart transplant. Inventor Robert Jarvik, whose artificial heart made patient Barney Clark a worldwide symbol of both the brilliant promise of technology and the devastating evils of experimentation run amuck.
Rich in supporting players, Ticker introduces us to Bud’s brilliant colleagues in his quixotic quest to develop an artificial heart: Billy Cohn, the heart surgeon and inventor who devotes his spare time to the pursuit of magic and music; Daniel Timms, the Brisbane biomedical engineer whose design of a lightweight, pulseless heart with but a single moving part offers a new way forward. And, as government money dries up, the unlikeliest of backers, Houston’s furniture king, Mattress Mack.
In a sweeping narrative of one man’s obsession, Swartz raises some of the hardest questions of the human condition. What are the tradeoffs of medical progress What is the cost, in suffering and resources, of offering patients a few more months, or years of life? Must science do harm to do good? Ticker takes us on an unforgettable journey into the power and mystery of the human heart.
