Only a few of the thousands of patients we see in cardiac surgery become good friends. Dick Shaw was one of those.
Dick faced three major heart surgeries, with each one carrying a greater and greater risk. But Dick’s optimism and love for life and his family drove us to keep trying.
As his family points out, he worked hard, he played hard, but he loved hard as well.
Dick underwent numerous surgeries primarily because the available replacement valves, meant to address heart valve failure, have limited durability. We have no valve that is perfect and unfortunately the valves failed him twice. With the third surgery, we didn’t get a chance to see if the newer valves were going to last longer, because unfortunately we couldn’t get him through the procedure.
Dick went into the surgery optimistically, as I did, and I very much value his trust in me and the team on that day. Dick was always keen to support the research of the Baird Institute, and one of the key areas happens to be heart valve design. We must keep working to do this better. We must keep working to do this better for Dick.
