Hearts

Of Surgeons and Transplants, Miracles and Disasters Along the Cardiac Frontier

Pioneer heart surgeons and bitter rivals: The “thoroughly engrossing” true story of doctors Michael DeBakey and Denton Cooley (The New York Times Book Review).

By 1970, the Texas Medical Center in Houston was the leading heart institute in the world, home to the field’s two most distinguished surgeons: Dr. Michael Ellis DeBakey and his young and ambitious disciple, Dr. Denton Arthur Cooley. Their combined mastery in occlusive disease, coronary artery bypass surgery, angioplasty, and heart transplants was unparalleled. For years they worked across the same operating table focused on, and fighting toward, the same lifesaving goals.

But what began as a personal friendship and a mutually respectful professional partnership soon deteriorated into a jealous and embittered feud. Though their discord was a cause célèbre among colleagues, it would take award-winning investigative journalist Thomas Thompson to uncover the stunning betrayals and simmering resentments that fueled one of the most famous rivalries in the history of medicine.

Weaving the story of DeBakey and Cooley with the stories of patients suffering life-threatening medical conditions, Thompson paints a fascinating portrait of the risks and rewards of cutting-edge science. From devastating tragedies to miraculous breakthroughs, Hearts is a richly detailed and utterly “compelling” account of the turmoil and tension behind one of the greatest medical achievements of the twentieth century (Time).