Leonard Bailey

Dr. Leonard L. Bailey is the Chairman of the Department of Surgery at Loma Linda University and Medical Center and a heart transplant pioneer. Bailey is a daring and skilled surgeon who implanted the heart of a baboon into an infant known as Baby Fae, who lived 21 days after the revolutionary surgery. The operation in 1987 created an international controversy and brought about a new era in heart transplantation. Bailey pressed on with research to fulfill the centuries-old dream of overcoming the species barrier, placing animal organs in humans. He then found that a small but significant number of infant hearts are available for babies with fatal birth defects, which can be transplanted, even at birth. This has touched off a separate ethical debate with his use of hearts from anencephalic babies (those born with rudimentary brains or none at all). He has also performed a number of other prominent heart transplantations including Baby Moses and Baby Eve. Baby Moses is the oldest living infant heart transplant recipient. Bailey is heralded as the leading expert in infant heart transplants in the world. He addressed the student delegates at the 1988 Achievement Summit a few months after his trail-blazing operation on Baby Fae.