Dr Potts’ Blue Children

Abstract

This narrative article aims to explore the life of Willis John Potts, a surgeon and pioneer in the field of pediatric cardiovascular surgery. Between the 1950s and 1960s, his work contributed enormously to the development of new surgical techniques and instruments; nevertheless, he remains a largely forgotten figure. Yet his determination and organizational skills enabled rapid and fundamental advances in surgery. Historical research, utilizing biomedical databases, represents an attempt to do historical justice to Potts: although unusual, this methodology has yielded a wealth of indexed information on Potts, including publications by him and his key collaborators. An analysis of Potts’ surgical career is also an analysis of the development of both pediatric surgery and, above all, cardiac surgery: the instruments and procedures he devised have found applications well beyond the exclusively pediatric field.