Trailblazer Dr. Nazih Zuhdi remembered as ‘fearless’
A pioneer of heart surgery, Dr. Nazih Zuhdi died Tuesday after six decades giving Oklahoma the best he could give.
Zuhdi, 91, was a worldrenowned heart surgeon, and he did his work proudly in Oklahoma City, his family and friends said.
Zuhdi was born in Beirut, Lebanon, on May 19, 1925, the son of a Syrian ophthalmologist father and Turkish mother.
He earned his medical degree from the American University of Beirut in 1950, before immigrating to the United States in 1951. He came to Oklahoma in 1957 to practice medicine, and from there, he never stopped innovating.
First, in 1959, alongside Drs. Allen Greer and John Carey, Zuhdi performed the first heart bypass operation in Oklahoma and installed the first pacemaker in the state.
Then, in 1970, Zuhdi implanted a human patient with the aortic valve from a pig — the first such procedure performed in North America.
In 1985, Zuhdi performed the state’s first human-to-human heart transplant, marking the first time in the United States that the procedure was performed in a hospital not associated with a medical school.
He continued to check milestones off the list of “first in Oklahoma,” and along the way, saved thousands of lives and trained countless surgeons, instilling in them the importance of never giving up.
“He was fearless, and he never doubted his skill,” said Stanley Hupfeld, former Integris Health CEO, who knew
Zuhdi for several years. “To do that kind of groundbreaking work ... that takes courage. It takes guts. It takes an enormous amount of self-confidence and belief in yourself . ... For most people, that’s 10 lifetimes. He did it all in one.”
One of Zuhdi’s most significant contributions was his work in researching and improving the heart-lung machine.
Dr. Jim Long, director of the Integris Nazih Zuhdi Transplant Institute in Oklahoma City, said before the development of the heart-lung machine, open heart surgery wasn’t possible, and surgeons couldn’t operate inside the heart, repairing heart valves and holes in the heart.
“He was one of the early pioneers in the entire field of cardiac surgery,” Long said. “A handful of pioneers that had the courage to break through the impossible, and he was a part of helping adapt heart-lung bypass technology — the heart-lung machine — and its use that revolutionized the field of heart surgery.”
Throughout his career, Zuhdi refused to take “no” for an answer and saved hundreds of lives through his belief that nothing was impossible.
Dr. David Vanhooser, a heart surgeon in Enid, said he first met Zuhdi in 1980 when he was a medical student at the University of Oklahoma. That first meeting started a lifelong friendship.
Zuhdi entrusted Vanhooser, a third-year general surgeon resident, to fly to Georgia to retrieve the donor heart used in the first heart transplant in Oklahoma.
Even though he has performed hundreds of heart surgeries, Vanhooser, 60, still remembers what that heart looked like when it started to beat inside then-45-year-old Nancy Rogers’ chest.
“The risk professionally that he took on that first transplant to save Nancy Rogers — there was no other operation for her. She either was going to get a heart transplant, or she was going to die,” Vanhooser said. “Had that not worked, they’d have run him out of Oklahoma. When you put your whole career on the line for something you believe in so much, that takes some real guts, and he would do it over and over again.”
Patients and medical professionals often approached his father, even on family trips to Europe, to thank him for his work, said his son Zack Zuhdi, 37.
Zack Zuhdi said his father was proud of the work he did in Oklahoma. He could have left. He could have worked anywhere he wanted. But Nazih Zuhdi knew he could make the most impact in Oklahoma.
“He was inclusive of everyone, and he really only cared to better the world,” Zack Zuhdi said. “He was a legend, a great Oklahoman, and above all, he cared about his entire family.”
Nazih Zuhdi, a practicing Muslim, was also an active member of the interfaith community.
Imad Enchassi, imam of the Islamic Society of Greater Oklahoma City, said Zuhdi became involved in interfaith work in Oklahoma City long before the larger community understood or embraced its importance.
In one of their recent conversations, Zuhdi talked with Enchassi about the importance of spreading peace and love throughout Oklahoma City.
Enchassi, 52, said Zuhdi leaves behind an institute of knowledge, an army of interfaith activists and a family who inherited his smile.
“He physically and spiritually touched people’s hearts,” Enchassi said. “As a heart surgeon, he was a pioneer in heart transplant, and as a caring interfaith leader, he touched people’s hearts spiritually.”