Stephen Westaby Explained

Professor Stephen Westaby FRCS (born 27 July 1948) is a British heart surgeon at John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, England.^[1]

Career

Westaby and his team performed Peter Houghton's heart operation in June 2000, implanting a Jarvik 7 artificial left ventricular assist device, a turbine pump. Peter Houghton (1938–2007) became the longest living person with an electrical heart pump in the world.^{[2] [3]}

His memoir of his career as a heart surgeon, Open Heart: A Heart Surgeon’s Stories of Life and Death on the Operating Table, was published in 2017 by HarperCollins.^[4] The book was shortlisted for the 2017 Costa Book Awards Biography Award^[5] and won the 2017 BMA president's choice award.^[6] A second memoir, The Knife's Edge: The Heart and Mind of a Cardiac Surgeon, was published by HarperCollins in 2019.^[7]

Notes and References

1. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/oxfordshire/8274259.stm "Heart surgeon does pioneering op"
2. News: Peter Houghton . . Caroline . Richmond. 4 January 2008 . London . 18 December 2007.
3. Web site: Javic 2000: The First Lifetime-Use Patient . Jarvik Heart, Inc . 4 January 2008 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20101121172612/http://www.jarvikheart.com/basic.asp?id=63 . 21 November 2010 .
4. News: Roberts. Yvonne. Book of the Day: Fragile Lives by Stephen Westaby. 23 June 2017. The Guardian. 12 February 2017.
5. Web site: Shortlist, 2017 Costa First Novel Award . 27 November 2018.
6. Web site: Outstanding medical books from around the world recognised at this year’s prestigious BMA Medical Book Awards . 27 November 2018.
7. News: Hammond . Phil . The Knife’s Edge: The Heart and Mind of a Cardiac Surgeon by Stephen Westaby review — life at the sharp end of surgery . The Times . 5 April 2019 . 15 May 2020.