Prosthetic Heart Valve Exhibit Opens

Episode # 62
Uploaded: July 28, 2011
Running Time: 01:59

CROWN: From the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland, this is CLINICAL CENTER RADIO.

Clinical Center and NIH leaders gathered with former researchers, patients and staff to officially open a new prosthetic heart valve exhibit in the South Lobby of the Clinical Center on July 11th. The exhibit was produced by the Office of NIH History's DeWitt Stetten, Jr.,. Museum of Medical Research in collaboration with the FDA's Office of History. Filled with photos, stories and medical research artifacts, the exhibit is a lesson in history. For longtime Clinical Center patient Walter Lingenfelter, formerly known as "Little Tommy," when he had his first heart surgery at NIH in the 1950s, it's a walk down memory lane.

LINGENFELTER: Actually, I didn't know this until later myself but they told my parents that if he made it to age 18 that would be good because all of this was pretty much all new. When they went inside they found it was a bit more messed up than they had thought. Of course, they never told me how they felt. But I know how I felt, and I wasn't going to settle for anything, but I was going to do the best that I can and do what they tell me. And now I'm 63, and I'm still going.

CROWN: Future related projects include a documentary film on prosthetic heart valves and a Web-based version of the exhibit, says Hank Grasso, an exhibition content developer with NIH's Office of History.

GRASSO: Most people think of the museum as a bone yard for old technologies. Our true mission is to be a reliquary for honored traditions and memories. The things that we find fascinating are the things that are never in the records...the interesting happenstances, the surprises, the disappointments. Those kinds of things fill in the gaps and tell the real story.

CROWN: From America's Clinical Research Hospital, this has been CLINICAL CENTER RADIO. In Bethesda, Maryland, I'm Ellen Crown, at the National Institutes of Health, an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services.

Back to Clinical Center Radio