Willis J. Potts

Willis John Potts (March 22, 1895 – May 5, 1968) was an American pediatric surgeon and one of the earliest physicians to focus on the surgical treatment of heart problems in children. Potts set up one of the country's first pediatric surgery programs at Children's Memorial Hospital (later renamed Lurie Children's Hospital) in Chicago.

A graduate of the University of Chicago and Rush Medical College, Potts was known for introducing a surgery to address the heart defects that resulted in blue baby syndrome; the procedure became known as the Potts shunt. In addition, Potts performed the first successful repair of a cardiovascular abnormality known as a pulmonary artery sling. He also invented several surgical instruments, with a particular emphasis on devices used in surgery on major blood vessels.

Potts remained a surgeon at Children's Memorial Hospital and a faculty member at the Northwestern University Medical School well into the 1960s. He retired to Sarasota, Florida, where he died of a heart attack at the age of 73.

Early life Born in 1895 in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, Potts moved with his family to a farm in nearby Cedar Grove when he was four years old. After his father died, Potts and an older brother ran the farm. Once he earned enough money, he enrolled in a private school in Cedar Grove and then studied at Hope College in Michigan. Potts, who had learned Dutch from his grandparents, studied Latin, Greek and German at Hope. During his senior year there, he joined the U.S. Chemical Warfare Service and fought overseas in World War I.

After the war, Potts resumed his studies in Chicago in 1919. He graduated from the University of Chicago with a Bachelor of Science. (Upon his graduation, Hope College awarded him a Bachelor of Arts.) Potts applied to medical school at the University of Chicago, which at that time involved two years at the University of Chicago and two years at Rush Medical College. He was one chemistry credit short of the requirements for admission to medical school, but chemistry department head Julius Stieglitz allowed him to complete the credit if he could submit the required work in the 18 days that were left the university's academic term.

Return to Chicago Returning to Chicago after World War II, Potts decided to focus on problems in pediatric surgery. In late 1946, he was appointed Surgeon-in-Chief at Children's Memorial Hospital (CMH).

The Potts shunt Potts spent considerable time thinking about the surgical correction of heart defects. Working with CMH pediatric cardiologist Stanley Gibson and with pathologist Joseph Boggs, Potts helped create a collection of more than 200 anatomic specimens of various heart defects. The collection was later used extensively by cardiovascular pathologist Maurice Lev.

Other contributions, awards and recognition In 1953, Potts was the first surgeon to successfully repair a pulmonary artery sling, an abnormality in which the lung blood vessels wrap around and compress the patient's windpipe. The patient who underwent this first repair was a five-month-old girl. She was still alive at nearly 25 years of age; like many of the patients who underwent Potts' version of this repair, she had decreased blood flow to the left lung, but she was doing well. Potts and his team also advanced the treatment of a heart defect known as transposition of the great arteries. In 1959, he attempted the separation of a set of conjoined twins who shared a heart. Both twins were weakening, but Potts hoped to save the stronger of the two; the child died within four hours of the procedure. He consulted on another case of conjoined twins the next year, but he declined to operate because he felt that the surgery had no chance of success.

Potts served as the president of several medical organizations, including the Institute of Medicine of Chicago, the Chicago Surgical Society and the Chicago Heart Association. He won several awards, including an American Medical Association Gold Medal and the William E. Ladd Medal from the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Personal life A Unitarian, Potts was deeply religious. Colleague Thomas Baffes wrote that Potts was "comfortable enough in his relationship with his God and secure enough in his technical excellence and genius not to feel threatened by the ambitious young people he attracted about him."

Potts married Henrietta Neeken in 1922, and they had three children.

Later life Potts wrote two books, The Surgeon and the Child (1959) and Your Wonderful Baby (1966).

When Potts retired, he moved to Sarasota, Florida. Potts' congenital heart surgery research center was renamed in his honor. He died of a heart attack in 1968; influenza had also contributed to his death. He was predeceased by two brothers and a sister, and he was survived by a sister, his wife, three children and 14 grandchildren.

Since the early 21st century, the Potts shunt has occasionally been brought back into use as a palliative treatment for children with pulmonary arterial hypertension.