2009 EXCELLENCE AWARD RECIPIENT

Dr. James D. Hardy
May 14, 1918 – February 19, 2003
Jackson, Mississippi

A pioneer in modern heart surgery, Dr. James D. Hardy was the first professor of surgery and one of the founding faculty members of The University of Mississippi School of Medicine.

As The University Medical Center was being formed, Dr. Hardy insisted that every member of the surgical faculty be board-certified. That commitment to rigorous standards produced high quality surgeons for Mississippi – one of his proudest accomplishments.

Dr. Hardy led the teams responsible for three groundbreaking operations: the first human lung transplant in 1963, the first animal-to-human heart transplant in 1964 and a double-lung transplant that left the heart in place in 1987.

Dr. Hardy researched transplant surgery as early as 1955. He was prepared to perform the first transplant of a human heart in 1964,but there was no human heart available when his patient was admitted to the hospital. Instead, Dr. Hardy used the heart of a chimpanzee – a move that stirred controversy. Dr. Hardy understood the criticism, writing in his memoir, The World of Surgery 1945-1985: Memoirs of One Participant, “We had not transplanted merely a human heart, we had transplanted a subhuman heart.”

Hardy won the support and admiration of his colleagues after publishing a paper about the surgery in the Journal of the American Medical Association detailing the strict ethical guidelines used in evaluating the donor and the recipient. In the years that followed, he was recognized worldwide as a preeminent scientist and surgeon.

Dr. Hardy produced 24 books, 139 book chapters, 466 papers and more than 200 films. He held 36 visiting professorships and presented 37 invited lectures. He served as president of most of the major surgical societies in the world, including the American College of Surgeons.

A February 22, 2003 editorial in The Clarion-Ledger noted that he “brought renown to UMC and the state of Mississippi for advances in medical science that literally caused the world to pause and take notice at a time in Mississippi’s history when the state was receiving almost daily national publicity that chronicled the lawless violence and racial intolerance of the civil rights era … Dr. Hardy reminded the world that Mississippi was a repository of great intellectual curiosity, scientific competence and universal compassion for the human condition.

Dr. Hardy was born in Newala, Alabama and received his medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1942. Dr. Hardy and his wife, Louise Scott Sams Hardy, raised four daughters, Dr. Louise Roeska-Hardy, Dr. Julia Ann Hardy, Dr. Bettie Winn Hardy and Dr. Katherine H. Little.