Aug. 5, 1917

John Kirklin first worked as a cardiac surgeon at the Mayo Clinic, where he helped perfect an instrumental heart-lung machine and performed the first open-heart surgeries using this device. By the time of his death in 2004, nearly a million cardiac operations worldwide had been performed using this machine.

On Sept. 1, 1966, Kirklin became director of the Division of Cardiothoracic Surgery at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) School of Medicine. He created one of the leading cardiovascular surgery programs. His innovative contributions were instrumental in helping UAB become Alabama’s largest employer and a world leader in medicine, research and education. On June 5, 1992, UAB opened its outpatient facility, Kirklin Clinic.

Born in Muncie, Indiana, on Aug. 5, 1917, Kirklin earned his bachelor’s degree at the University of Minnesota in 1938 and went on to graduate from Harvard Medical School in 1942.

Read more at Encyclopedia of Alabama.

Dr. John Kirklin performing surgery with other medical staff members. (Photograph courtesy of UAB)

Architect I.M. Pei and Dr. John Kirklin, 2005. (Photograph courtesy of UAB)

Kirklin Clinic at UAB. (Photograph courtesy of UAB)

Kirklin Clinic at UAB. (Photograph courtesy of UAB)

For more on Alabama’s Bicentennial, visit Alabama 200.