America is in the midst of a cardiac health crisis. It’s the height of the Baby Boom, and American children are dying from heart disease in greater numbers than ever before in history. The doctor who sets out to solve this problem may just be the most fascinating man you've never heard of. Racing against his own terminal cancer diagnosis, Dr. Walt Lillehei embarks on an impossible mission: curing congenital heart defects in kids. His proposed solution outrages the medical community, threatens to end his career and risks the lives of both his young patients and their parents. But it opens the door to a new frontier of medicine.

 

For more information on the first cardiac surgeons, check out Dr. Gerald Imber's book "CARDIAC COWBOYS: The Heroic Invention of Heart Surgery," published by Post Hill Press in 2024.

 

Presented by: Chris Pine
Written and Narrated by: Jamie Napoli

 
Executive Producers: Cristina Everett for iHeartPodcasts; Dub Cornett and Jason Ross for OSO Studios; Gerald Imber; Eric A. Rose, M.D.; John Mankiewicz; Joshua Paul Johnson; and Jamie Napoli

Supervising Producer: James A. Smith

Editing and Sound Design by: Joshua Paul Johnson

Composer: David Mansfield Cover Artwork by: Alexander Smith

Production Companies: iHeartPodcasts, OSO Studios, and 13th Lake Media

Production Legal Services: Jacqueline Eckhouse & Mel Pudig, Sloss Eckhouse Dasti Haynes LawCo; and Lincoln Bandlow, Lincoln Bandlow Law 

Archival Materials Courtesy of: The University of Minnesota Archives, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities; Special Collections, University of Rhode Island Library; and G. Wayne Miller, author of "King of Hearts: The True Story of the Maverick Who Pioneered Open Heart Surgery"

Additional Archival Materials Courtesy of: "The Dick Cavett Show" (ABC 1970); "The Twentieth Century" (CBS 1966); "March of Medicine" (NBC 1954); KGU; C-SPAN; "Nova" (WGBH Boston & PBS 1988 & 1999); "The Vision of Perseus: Norman Shumway" (Stanford University Libraries 1993); and the Minnesota Historical Society.

Additional Music & Stock Media Provided by: EdRecords / Pond5; EpicRecord / Pond5; Music Bed; Premium Beat; Storyblocks; Artlist; APM; Envato Market; Tribe of Noise; ccMixter (TuneTrack); Incompetech; and Podcast Music.

This podcast was recorded under a SAG-AFTRA collective bargaining agreement.

Copyright 2025, TTB, LLC. All rights reserved.

 

 

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