UW heart surgeons at work in 1956. The UW Department of Surgery is hosting a tribute to K. Alvin Merendino who came to the UW surgery department in 1949. Merendino was chair of the department from 1964 to 1972.

The Department of Surgery is hosting a tribute to K. Alvin Merendino, chair of the department from 1964 until 1972, from 2:30 to 3:30 p.m., Friday, May 10, in room K-069 of the Health Sciences Center.

Merendino came to the UW in 1949 as associate professor of surgery and soon became director of the experimental surgery laboratories. He had earned his medical degree in 1940 from Yale University and a Ph.D. in surgery from the University of Minnesota. He was a faculty member there before joining the UW. Merendino is perhaps best known as a pioneering open-heart surgeon, and led the team that performed the Northwest's first open-heart surgery in 1956 at Harborview Medical Center. After University Hospital (now UW Medical Center) opened, he was surgeon in chief there from 1964 to 1972. He also held many top national leadership positions, including chair of the American Board of Surgery in the mid-1960s.

At the tribute Carlos Pellegrini, professor and chair of surgery, will present historical slides from the department. Other speakers include several former colleagues and surgeons who trained under Merendino, including Loren Winterscheid, professor emeritus of surgery, George Thomas, clinical professor of surgery, and Eugene Hessel, former UW surgery faculty member. The Cardiothoracic Surgery Division's 11th annual visiting scholar lecture "Reperfusion Injury after Lung Transplantation" presented by Irving L. Kron, chair of the University of Virginia's Department of Surgery and chief of the Division of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery, follows the tribute at 3:30 p.m.