In 1950, Dr. C. Walton Lillehei at the University of Minnesota (UMN) performed surgery on Mike Shaw from Litchfield, MN, using the world’s first small, portable, battery-powered pacemaker invented at his behest by Earl Bakken (a UMN employee who later founded Medtronic). Dr. C. Walton Lillehei is now known as the “Father of Open-Heart Surgery.”

The story of Mike Shaw‘s famous operation is told in the book “King of Hearts” by G. Wayne Miller. The book is about the doctor who performed the operation, Dr. Lillehei. The story is also told in his brother’s autobiography “Terry Tales” by Terry Shaw.