Dr. DeVries Fan Club

Our class was fortunate enough to have a couple lectures from Dr. William DeVries back when we were learning heart anatomy.  Dr. DeVries was the first surgeon to implant a total artificial heart.  Today, courtesy of our Surgery Interest Group, he came back to speak to us again.

Dr. DeVries started his presentation talking about technology and the rates at which new innovations are adopted.  He told us how he initially started researching artificial hearts when he stopped by a lecture hall where he overhead laughter and proceeded to ask Dr. Willem Kolff if he could work with him in his research.  Dr. Kolff liked DeVries' Dutch name and thus agreed.

Dr. DeVries spoke about Dr. Robert Jarvik, the inventor of the artificial heart, and what a strange guy he was.  He showed us several portraits of Jarvik including one by Annie Liebovitz.  He spoke on the feelings physicians had towards Dr. Jarvik for having an M.D., but never practicing medicine and using his degree for financial gains, such as promoting Lipitor.  Later in the talk, when students were asking Dr. DeVries questions about his work with other famous people he said, "Jarvik is one of my best friends, but I don't particularly like him."  While that statement is funny taken out of context, he explained that it is important to work well with people and that innovators and thinkers tend to be really weird people who don't stand each other, but it's important to tolerate them and work well together.  He and Jarvik recognized their relationship and their need to work together, but neither one wants to party with the other.

portrait of Dr. Jarvik by Annie Leibovitz

Dr. DeVries casually told us a story from Dr. Jarvik's wedding when he was sitting with Dr. Asimov.  An individual came up to the table wanting to settle a bet and asked Dr. Asimov why the moon appears larger near the horizon, and he responded something having to do with tangential angles and gas densities.  Dr. DeVries told him that wasn't right, and that he remembered as a boyscout holding a stick up and seeing that the moon was the same size at the horizon and high in the sky.  Dr. Asmiov didn't believe him but called up MIT, NASA and whomever else he consults, and then proceeded to retract his statement, though he refused to go inform the bet-winner.

Dr. DeVries also got personal with us, telling about his father, LTJG Henry DeVries, a Navy medical officer who was killed in action.  He was only 6 months old when his father died, but he showed us the telegram this his mother received.  He didn't know much about his father until years later when he himself became famous and he started receiving letters from around the country from those who had served with his father.  One person even sent him a photo of his father's burial at sea.  Dr. DeVries who had been speaking fairly nonchalantly about his amazing life, seemed a bit choked up when he talked about how he finally got to know his father.  He said that his father was the reason he was here today, as he tried to join the military during Vietnam, but was denied as he was the sole survivor in his family.  His mother was furious that he had even tried, "You've taken my father and my husband, you're not taking my son."  She told the recruiters.  They assured her that they couldn't, and that only his grandson could be drafted.

LTJG Henry DeVries

Years later on a golf outing Army Maj. Gen. Evan Gaddis recruited DeVries to join the Army.  He was 56 years old and commissioned as a lieutenant colonel.  He then came to work at Walter Reed, and now serves as the academic coordinator for cardiothoracic surgery, and teaches to us!