The Heart Healers: The Misfits, Mavericks, and Rebels Who Created the Greatest Medical Breakthrough of Our Lives

Forrester, a cardiologist and professor of medicine, has fashioned a stunning survey of cardiology’s “Golden Age” and the “misfits” who made it so. These pioneers discovered the means to fix—and even replace—damaged hearts, restore life after sudden death, effectively treat heart attacks as they are happening, and turn “the scourge of the 20th century,” coronary artery disease (CAD), “into a preventable disease.” He begins with the first cardiac surgeon, Dwight Harken, who saved a WWII soldier wounded with shrapnel in his heart, and Charles Bailey, who perfected the surgery to repair failing hearts with mitral valve stenosis. Forrester’s impressive roster also includes the outspoken Mason Sones, who developed the coronary angiogram; Argentine surgeon Rene Favaloro, an idealist who introduced coronary artery bypass surgery; and Japanese biochemist Akira Endo, who discovered statins, “the wonder drug for treatment of CAD.” Forrester also tells his own touching story of treating a 12-year-old El Salvadoran girl: “a frail little girl standing alone in a joyless room, a foreign land, trusting her life to strangers she could barely understand.” It’s a book of marvels, and Forrester eloquently argues that “cardiology’s Golden Age deserves a place on the short list of the last half century’s scientific wonders.” [em](Sept.) [/em]