History
Historic milestones
Every day we are working to advance health care and improve lives through compassionate, collaborative patient care, new research insights and educating the next generation.
Every day we are working to advance health care and improve lives through compassionate, collaborative patient care, new research insights and educating the next generation.
• World’s first successful open-heart surgery
• First successful heart/lung machine
1960s
• First 11-county, metro-area community heart surgery program
• First pancreas transplant in the world
• First successful human bone marrow transplant in the world
1970s
• First implantable drug pump to free patients from daily injections
• First total-body CT scanner
1980s
• The Birthplace, the first labor, delivery, recovery, postpartum, single-room maternity care offered in the Twin Cities, opened
• Midwest’s first successful double-lung transplant
1990s
• Minnesota’s first cochlear ear implant surgery for a child
• First neonatal intensive care unit partnership in Minnesota
• Discovery that autologous bone marrow transplant can improve survival rates for chronic myelogenous leukemia patients
• First living-donor pediatric liver transplant in Minnesota
• First hospital in the world to successfully transplant all intra-abdominal organs
2000s
• World’s first blood and marrow transplant using genetic testing on an embryo to find a suitable cord blood donor
• World’s first simultaneous laparoscopic living-donor kidney and partial-pancreas transplant
• First hospital in Minnesota to treat cancer patients with intensity modulated radiation therapy (IMRT)
• 5,000th BMT performed
• Minnesota’s first Berlin Heart® implant works as a bridge to cardiac transplantation in a child
