For generations, patients with serious heart problems have turned to Johns Hopkins physicians for help. Recognized worldwide, Hopkins cardiologists and cardiac surgeons provide comprehensive care of the highest quality, ensuring that patients receive the most advanced treatments known to medicine.
There’s a good chance the heart disease treatments of which you’re most aware were created at Hopkins. In 1944, Hopkins pediatric cardiologist Helen Taussig, surgeon Alfred Blalock and his technician, Vivien Thomas, developed the “blue baby” operation to repair the hearts of infants born with a previously fatal congenital defect that left them blue from oxygen deficiency. Hopkins physicians and researchers went on to develop cardiac defibrillators to correct heartbeat irregularities and to devise cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Hopkins research was the first to show that tissue plasminogen activator (t-PA), a clot-busting medication, could improve heart function following a heart attack. Hopkins scientists played a critical role in starting the field of clinical genetics by mapping the genes associated with Marfan syndrome, a connective tissue disorder that usually causes heart problems.
