7-year-old Lorraine Sweeney came to Boston Children's Hospital with a diagnosis of patent ductus arterioles, a congenital heart defect consisting of a persistent abnormal opening between the pulmonary artery and the aorta. In 1938, it was generally a death sentence—one that would likely end with Sweeney dying of congestive heart failure before adulthood.
Robert Gross, MD, the chief surgical resident at Children's at the time, was certain that the defect could be surgically corrected, but it had never been tried before. He lobbied for the opportunity to test his theory, despite skepticism from his peers, and direct opposition from William Ladd, MD, Children's surgeon-in-chief, and Gross's superior.
Gross waited until Ladd when on vacation and with the blessing of Sweeney's mother, he put his career on the line and performed a revolutionary surgery—tying off Sweeney's patent ductus arteriosus, allowing normal flow of blood through her heart. "Dr. Gross told me that if I had died, he would never have worked again," Sweeney recalls. Instead, Lorraine Sweeney became the first person in the world to survive surgery to correct a congenital heart defect.
Lorraine is now in her 80's and is a great-grand mother.
