Philip Caves

Philip Kennedy Caves (23 July 1940 – 1978) was a Northern Irish cardiothoracic surgeon. In 1972, while at Stanford University, he pioneered the use of the bioptome and transvenous endomyocardial biopsy in the early diagnosis of heart transplant rejection. It was considered the most significant advance in antirejection therapy of the time. Awarded the British American Research Fellowship in 1971, Caves worked with pioneering cardiothoracic surgeon Norman Shumway at Stanford and became staff surgeon leading the transplant programme by 1973. A year later he went to Edinburgh as a senior lecturer in cardiac surgery, where he became particularly interested in pediatric cardiac surgery.

By 1975, Caves had become a professor in the University of Glasgow honorary consultant surgeon and chair of cardiac surgery in Glasgow and with 'inexhaustible dynamism' involved in the organisation of cardiac surgery. His sudden death at the age of 38 years whilst playing squash was said to have shocked many of his colleagues. The International Society of Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT) bestows one of its highest awards in his name.

Early education Caves was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in 1940. He attended the Royal Belfast Academical Institution and then studied medicine at Queen's University Belfast, from which he graduated with a MB BCh in 1964. who was the histopathologist at Stanford. Here, he perfected the technique of percutaneous transvenous endomyocardial biopsy using the flexible Stanford-Caves Schulz bioptome which transformed the management of heart transplant patients and helped in a significant improvement in the results of heart transplantation. Werner Schulz was an instrument maker and key to the modification of the bioptome. Until that time the only way of trying to detect early rejection was by the daily monitoring of summated EKG voltages which tended to decline as rejection developed but at a relatively late stage. Cyclosporin was given if the biopsy result indicated early rejection. By the 1980s this was considered the best method of detection. During his second year, Stanford's leading cardiothoracic surgeon, Norman Shumway had become impressed with what Caves had achieved and he promoted Caves to Chief Resident in 1972 and to Staff Surgeon in charge of the Transplant programme in 1973. A close friend who visited Caves in Stanford and later pioneered the cardiac transplant programme in Cambridge, Sir Terence English, described Caves in an interview as giving priority to the development of the paediatric and adult cardiac services and having "great enthusiasm for the future of heart transplantation".

Caves was a left-handed surgeon who worked with specially designed left-handed instruments. Shumway made sure that Caves took his left-handed tools with him on return to Scotland. His influence on attitudes at Glasgow's Children's Hospital in the 1970s has been described as "whirlwind" as he operated on newborns who were previously considered not fit for surgery. Since 1983, the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplant has awarded its highest award to a surgical trainee. $1,000 is awarded at the Caves Award session during the annual general meeting to the surgical trainee who gives the best oral presentation. Eligibility criteria include students / Residents / Fellows / Scientists in training who are first authors and presenters, must be current members of the Society and not having previously won the award.

Awards 1971 – British American Research Fellowship

Selected publications "Percutaneous Transvenous Endomyocardial Biopsy in Human Heart Recipients". The Annals of Thoracic Medicine, Vol. 16, Issue 4 (October 1973), pp. 325–336. Co-authored with Edward B. Stinson, Margaret Billingham and Norman E. Shumway.