Swan, Henry

U.S. heart surgeon Henry Swan II was born on May 27, 1913 in Denver, Colorado, the son of railroad executive Henry Sr. and Carla Denison Swan. Dr. Swan made significant contributions to the development of open heart surgery techniques, particularly through his research in hypothermia and suspended circulation.

After graduating in 1931 from the Phillips Exeter Academy in Exeter, New Hampshire, Swan attended Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts and completed one of the institution's first combined English-History majors. He graduated magna cum laude in 1935, the valedictorian of his class. Intent of extending the line of Denison family doctors to five generations, Swan next enrolled at Harvard Medical School in Boston, Massachusetts as a member of the class of 1939, a group distinguished for producing nineteen full professors. Once again he was valedictorian of his class. Swan spent a brief period at Colorado General Hospital in Denver as a Pathology Resident before returning to Boston in 1940 to intern at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital until 1942, at which point he became a Surgical Resident at Boston's Children's Hospital.

...