A Half-Century of Care

I’ve been a Cleveland Clinic patient for more than 50 years. 

When I was a boy in the 1950s, my family doctor detected a heart murmur. I’d had rheumatic fever as a child, and it created a defect in my heart. I was sent to Cleveland Clinic because by then, Cleveland Clinic was one of the leading places for heart care. They put me on medication. 

When I was 60, I had heart surgery at Cleveland Clinic. They replaced my mitral valve with a pig’s valve. The surgery was robotically assisted. I remember the robot arms overhead and a computer at the end of the operating table. I had three small incisions between my ribs for the robot arms, which meant I wouldn’t have a big scar across my chest. The doctor who did my surgery ended up in charge of Cleveland Clinic.¹ 

Before the surgery, I was out of breath a lot. I felt a lot better after. After all these years, I’m not surprised that Cleveland Clinic is still No. 1 for heart care. 

Before his retirement, Garry Still was an architectural engineer. “I drew everything by hand on my drafting table,” he says. “I could draw you anything from a barn to a house to a factory.”