History and Milestones

Brigham and Women's Hospital was formed in 1980 as a result of the merger between the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital and the Boston Hospital for Women. Over the years, BWH surgeons have been instrumental in a number of historical milestones.

• 1923 - The first successful heart valve surgery in the world is performed at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital by Dr. Eliot Cutler. 
• 1931- Harvey Cushing, MD, the father of modern neurosurgery, performs his 2,000th brain surgery while serving as chief of Surgery (Peter Bent Brigham Hospital).
• 1954 - The first successful human organ transplant, a kidney transplanted from one identical twin to another, is accomplished. In 1990, Joseph Murray, MD, receives the Nobel Prize for this work and the subsequent development of immunosuppressive drugs (Peter Bent Brigham Hospital).
• 1984 - The first heart transplant in New England
• 1992 - BWH performs the first heart-lung transplant in Massachusetts.
• 1994 - BWH unveils the world's first Intra-Operative Magnetic Resonance Imaging System. This invention, which enables clinicians to take images of the body's interior during surgery, makes it possible to cure patients with brain tumors that previously were considered inoperable.
• 1995 - BWH performs the nation's first triple organ transplant, removing three organs from a single donor-two lungs and a heart-and transplanting them into three patients, giving each a new lease on life.
• 1996 - BWH becomes one of only 10 hospitals in the country to perform "minimally invasive" aortic valve surgery.
• 2000 - In what is believed to be a "first" in organ transplantation, BWH performs a quadruple transplant. Harvesting four organs from a single donor - a kidney, two lungs and a heart - hospital surgeons give new hope to four patients.
• 2001 - The first to perform a complete operation on a patient with a surgeon directed, computer assisted robot in New England
• 2004 - BWH achieves another transplant "first". Hundreds of BWH staff - including doctors, nurses and intensive care staff - come in on their weekend time off to make possible five lung transplants in 36 hours.
• 2005 - BWH marked it’s 500^th heart transplant in 2005, the most for any New England hospital. This historic operation adds BWH to an exclusive list of hospitals nationwide to reach this mark, according to the United Network of Organ Sharing (UNOS).
• 2009 - BWH is the 2nd hospital in the U.S. to perform a partial facial transplant.

You can read "A Brief Surgical History of the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital" in the April 2005 issue of Archives of Surgery.  For a complete list of BWH milestones, please click here.