Norman E. Shumway

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Norman E. Shumway

American surgeon who in 1968 performed the first heart transplant on an adult patient in the United States. He also conducted the first heart-lung transplant and pioneered a procedure for correcting birth defects through bypass surgery. Shumway was instrumental in urging the government and medical community to adopt a definition of death based on the cessation of brain activity rather than on the absence of a heartbeat.