Heart Operation Implants Pride

The reaetïon of community and medical leaders to this mornng's heart transplant operation at University Hospital was one of pride in the accomphshment and of concern over the factors involved. "I'm very pleased, of course, that it has gone successfully," University President Robben W. Fleming said. "I assume that everybody understands the risks involved." "We're very proud of our hospital staff. I assume the team will want to do more but these are terribly expensive operations and they have to be subsidized from some source and those funds are increasingly scarce." Mayor Wendell E. Hulcer commented that "it demonstrates the outstanding capabilities of the University Hospital and it pleases me that Ann Arbor can be the home of! this type of institution." "I am also very pleased that this person's life could be extended," he said. Dr. Alexander Gotz, chief of staff at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital and chairman of the department of medicine there, feit it was a "marvelous technic a 1 accomplishment" b u t emphasized it was a "complex problem not only technically bui financially and religiously." "One important point," he said, "is to know when to remove the heart from the donor- in other words, what is death?" Dr. Howard Williams, presi ' dent of the Washtenaw County Medical Society, called heart I transplants "one of the great ' advances of medicine" and saM, "I'm glad they are start-, ing to be able to do this in this community."