Stuart W. Jamieson

Stuart William Jamieson (born 1947) is a British cardiothoracic surgeon, specialising in pulmonary thromboendarterectomy (PTE), a surgical procedure performed to remove organized clotted blood (thrombus) from pulmonary arteries in people with chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension (CTEPH).

In his early career, he wrote on xenograft hyperacute rejection and in December 1980 was part of the team that performed the first successful human heart transplant using the then newly discovered immunosuppressant cyclosporine. In 1981, he was part of Bruce Reitz's team that performed the world's first successful combined heart-lung transplant procedure at Stanford University. Following that, he continued to make significant contributions to heart-lung transplant procedures, and led programmes in cardiothoracic surgery in both adults and children.

In 1986, he was elected president of the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT), whilst he was professor and head of cardiothoracic surgery at the University of Minnesota. Later, he became dean of cardiovascular affairs and chair and distinguished professor of surgery at the University of California, San Diego, where he co-founded the Sulpizio Cardiovascular Center.

Early life and education

Stuart Jamieson was born in 1947 and brought up in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where he was educated at Falcon College. His childhood was spent on a 2.5 million acre ranch with pets that included a zebra, an ostrich and a giraffe. At the age of 18, Jamieson was sent to St Mary's Hospital, affiliated with the University of London, to study medicine.

Background The first combined heart-lung transplant was accomplished by Denton Cooley in 1968, in Houston, in a two-year-old girl with severe pulmonary hypertension. Despite surviving less than a day, her case showed that this kind of procedure could be effective. The second such transplant was performed in 1969, by C. Walton Lillehei at Cornell University Medical Center in New York City, in a 43-year-old man with emphysema. He lived for eight days. It was on this background of tragic deaths that Jamieson later acknowledged and shared his research on xenograft hyperacute rejection.

In 1978, the American Heart Association awarded him a fellowship to study at Stanford University under the pioneering heart surgeon Norman Shumway, who had performed the first human heart transplant in America in 1967. Jamieson completed his residency in 1980 and stayed on as chief resident at Shumway's request. Subsequently, with Edward Stinson and Norman Shumway, he published Stanford's achievements in a report in the British Medical Journal (BMJ) on "Cardiac transplantation in 150 patients at Stanford University". This report was one of the developments that supported the recommencement of heart surgery in the UK under Sir Terence English in 1979.

In December 1980, he participated in the first successful human heart transplant using cyclosporine. The recipient was then age 20 and still living in 2017 at the age of 58. and accompanied by John Wallwork and Norman Shumway. The recipient, a 45-year-old woman with Eisenmenger's syndrome, lived for 5 years.

Simultaneous work in Toronto, under Joel D. Cooper and the Toronto transplant group also reported success with single-lung transplants and then with en bloc bilateral lung transplants.

He co-founded the International Society for Heart and Lung Transplantation (ISHLT) in 1981 and later became its president in 1986.

San Diego

By 1989, Jamieson had transferred his entire surgical team, including Michael Peter Kaye, to the University of California, San Diego.

Heart-lung surgery

By 1989, he had performed around 500 heart transplants and more than 50 heart-lung transplants. Many physicians have been unaware of the existence of CTEPH and as a consequence it has been underdiagnosed. Jamieson was the first to report that CTEPH can be corrected with PTE.

Jamieson's 2003 publication, describing the first 1,500 cases of PTE, confirmed the benefits of surgery and dismissed the myth that poor right ventricular function disqualified a patient as fit for surgery.

By 2011 there were approximately 30 centers worldwide that offered pulmonary endarterectomy and half of the 4,000 procedures performed were being done by Jamieson's programme directorship at University of California, San Diego (UCSD).

Jamieson pioneered the procedure of pulmonary thromboendarterectomy (PTE). During his four decades at UCSD, he made modifications to the procedure of PTE, adapted surgical instruments and proposed a classification of CTEPH.

Karen (orangutan) In 1994, Jamieson led the team that performed the first open heart surgery on an orangutan, Karen, at the San Diego Zoo. He repaired her penny-size hole in the heart when she was two years old. She recovered and made headlines.

Personal life Jamieson is a cattle rancher and commercial helicopter pilot. He has three children. Ellis Island Medal of Honor (2008). ISHLT Pioneer Award (2017).

Selected publications Jamieson has published more than 500 scientific papers and authored two key medical textbooks on heart and lung surgery.

Autobiography Close to the Sun; The Journey of a Pioneer Heart Surgeon, RosettaBooks (2019),

Book chapters "Modern Management of Chronic Pulmonary Thromboembolism including Pulmonary Thromboendarterectomy" in Advanced Therapy in Thoracic Surgery, 2005. (With Michael M. Madani)

Journal articles "Cardiac transplantation in 150 patients at Stanford University", British Medical Journal, No. 1 (1979), pp. 93–95. (With Edward B. Stinson and Norman Shumway) "Primary Pulmonary Hypertension and Pregnancy", Chest Journal, Vol. 89, No. 3 (March 1986), pp. 383–388. "Pulmonary endarterectomy: Experience and lessons learned in 1,500 cases" The Annals of Thoracic Surgery, Vol. 76, No. 5 (November 2003), pp. 1457–1464. "Pulmonary endarterectomy", US Cardiology, Vol 1, No. 1 (2004), pp. 1–3. "Technical advances of pulmonary endarterectomy for chronic thromboembolic pulmonary hypertension", Seminars in Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, Vol. 18, Issue 3 (2006), pp. 243–249. (With M. Madani) "Pulmonary endarterectomy: recent changes in a single institution's experience of more than 2,700 patients", The Annals of Thoracic Surgery, Vol. 94, Issue 1 (July 2012),