Sharon Hunt

Sharon Ann Hunt is a cardiology professor and Director of the Post Heart Transplant Programme in Palo Alto, California and is affiliated with Stanford University Medical Center, professionally known for her work in the care of patients after heart transplantation.

With a career at Stanford spanning over fifty years, Hunt has witnessed the history of heart transplant surgery from the very first one in the US by Norman Shumway in 1968, through the international moratorium on heart transplants and the recent decades of combined heart-lung transplants and mechanical assist devices.

She is a past president of the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation and received their lifetime achievement award in 2012.

As one of the 130 cardiology specialists at Stanford, her other activities include contributions to Uptodate and Hurst's Cardiology and more than 200 publications.

Early life and education Sharon Ann Hunt was brought up in Cleveland, Ohio, and completed her early education from the undergraduate school at the University of Dayton. She spent her summer breaks in a research laboratory at the Cleveland Clinic, sparking her interest in cardiology and subsequent entry to the study of medicine.

Hunt began her medical career as one of seven female students in her class at Stanford in 1967, the year prior to the landmark heart transplant procedure by Norman Shumway.

As a medical student, Hunt became involved in research observing the effects of several drugs on heart muscle cells in tissue culture, a project that introduced her to many of the cardiac trainees at Stanford at that time.

She was mentored by heart transplant pioneer Norman Shumway and pathologist Margaret Billingham and also worked with cardiothoracic surgeon Philip Caves and Edward Stinson, and has therefore witnessed the history of heart transplant surgery in the US from its early years.

First heart transplant, 1968 As a second-year medical student, she has recounted the first heart transplant procedure in the US as "groundbreaking...very exciting" when "the whole place was abuzz with the news of it". She recalls the poor survival rates and the vast public interest which led members of the press to climb the outside of the hospital to try to get pictures inside the hospital.

Hunt is known by a number of her colleagues as the "mother of transplant",

In 2013, Hunt described one-year survival rates of 90% with many living for over thirty years. The device used was the “Novacor” (left ventricular assist system), which used an electromechanically driven dual pusher-plate blood pump. Later, the Thoratec HeartMate XVE device became approved with the landmark REMATCH trial.

Hunt wrote the commentary on the REMATCH trial, "Randomized Evaluation of Mechanical Assistance for the Treatment of Congestive Heart Failure", a trial led by Eric A. Rose.

Although using LVADs as an artificial heart in order to buy time and bridge the gap until a heart transplant was initially for short-term means, some people have kept them for long periods of time and some have been able to wean off the device to recovery.

Appointments Her career subsequently evolved at Stanford and she progressed as clinical instructor and assistant, associate professor and then eventually clinical professor in 1993, becoming professor in the Division of Cardiovascular Medicine. In 2010 she became board certified in advanced heart failure and transplant cardiology. Heart transplants are a focus of her practice. She was succeeded by William Baumgartner.

She works with UpToDate and Hurst's The Heart. A year later, she received the Hewlett award.

She has chaired joint committees of the American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association which have revised patient care guidelines for heart failure.

Personal and family Hunt married a psychologist. He died in 2004. She has one daughter who is a police officer in Sacramento.

In her personal time, she spends time with horses, growing orchids, and traveling. She has described the opportunity to travel internationally as a result of her work.

Selected publications Books Associate editor in Hurst's the Heart, published by McGraw Hill Professional, 2011.

Papers

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Guidelines