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Blue Baby and Acute Coronary Revascularization

by Tracy Berg
Blue Baby and Acute Coronary Revascularization

Getting to know Ralph Berg, the pioneering open-heart surgeon, was not easy. Many years passed before he was willing to divulge what informed so much of his later work: Jason, his youngest son. But Ralph Berg’s own story began many decades before Jason’s birth.

 

Ralph became a doctor during World War II and quickly grew fascinated with the human heart. After his chest residency, he assembled a remarkable heart and research team that helped bring open-heart surgery and advanced surgical procedures on blue babies to Spokane, Washington, in 1959. Then, in 1969, with the medical community on the cusp of discovering the cause and treatment of heart attacks, Jason was born to Ralph and Mary Berg—a doomed blue baby.

Learn how Ralph Berg sought to save his son and how he and Dr. Francis Everhart developed the lauded Spokane Experience protocol. Witness the joy Ralph shared with Jason and his family. Blue Baby and Acute Coronary Revascularization is a powerful story about hope, innovation, and the love of family.

Pages: 340
Pub Date: 12-16-2024
Softcover: 20.95 979-8-88824-563-7
Hardcover: 16.95 979-8-88824-565-1

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The reviews are in…

  • “Written by a loving family member and herself a surgeon about her uncle, an outstanding surgeon in his own right. It highlights the personality and professional drive that accounts for Dr. Ralph Berg’s achievements in surgery and his total commitment to his wife and family. A remarkable story about an extraordinary man, his family, his profession, and his passions.”


    —Julie Spores, CRNA

  • “A heritage of Spokane, Washington, of physicians both academic and nonacademics, of immigrants, of the American dream, and of family. A surgical master, Dr. Ralph Berg, facing rejection despite knowing he would be validated, continued to do what was right and saved lives."


    —Dr. Linda Harrison, family practitioner, PEO Chapter CL

  • “Especially because I am seventy-seven years young and those fifty-some years ago are now what I consider some of my most rewarding, Ralph Berg, a.k.a. ‘Big Daddy,’ had ideas and solutions about life that were somewhat questionable then but make a hell of a lot of sense now."


    —Jim Kappen, RN and operating room manager, Valley Hospital

Tracy Berg is a surgeon who was inspired to attend medical school and then surgical residency by her uncle, the incomparable Ralph Berg. She graduated from Washington State University with a BS and MS, then from the University of Maryland with her MD. Tracy did her surgical residency at the University of Maryland. She returned to Spokane in 1995. This is Tracy Berg’s first book.

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