At a time when St. Charles Health System appears from ads in The Bulletin to be reaching back in its history for the past 100 years to 1917, when the five nuns from the Convent of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Tipton, Indiana, began their long journey to Bend, to open a hospital to serve the health care needs of their region, the story of James Wood and his contribution to the cardiac surgery program at St. Charles seems fitting. Most importantly, there is one particular element that seems to have been lost as the past has been forgotten. The story of James Wood, M.D., and the early days of cardiac surgery will shine a much-needed light on what worked then and now seems lost.

Dr. Tom Combs was the first cardiologist east of the Cascades in Oregon, coming here from the military in 1976, and I was fortunate to join him in 1980. Dr. Combs was a selfless, dedicated physician and superb cardiologist. I have not met a finer cardiologist and humble teacher. Together we participated in the dawn of interventional cardiology in the early 1980s, and it did not take long for us to realize that we simply had to have a viable, sustainable cardiac surgical program.

Fortunately at that time the cooperative relationship between the medical community and the hospital was strong, which enabled us over a four-year period to have the hospital secure a contract for cardiac surgery with the Starr-Wood cardiac surgical group in Portland, and St. Charles became a satellite of that most respected program out of St. Vincent’s Hospital, Portland. The first open heart case at St. Charles was done five days before the “go live” date on a middle-aged woman who had ruptured her mitral valve and was in extremis and dying. She was alive and well 18 years later.

But the surgical program would not have survived had it not been for a superb cardiac surgeon from Portland who had a love and dedication to Central and Eastern Oregon. Dr. James Wood was a longtime partner to Dr. Albert Starr, who invented along with others the first cardiac valve implanted in the world. Dr. Wood worked through the early days and tribulations of valve replacement with Dr. Starr and together they trained numerous cardiac surgeons both in the U.S. and abroad through their international fellowship program. This amazing and talented surgeon passed away on Oct. 15, 2017, and his legacy here in Central Oregon is largely unknown or forgotten. Dr. Wood traveled numerous times to St. Charles and laid the groundwork for what would become the first cardiac surgical program in Central and Eastern Oregon. He personally selected and mentored each surgeon to be sent here from Starr-Wood surgical group.

There were many problems in the early days, but this dedicated surgeon supported us at all times, including the sudden need when our surgeon became unable to work. After a call to him that night, Dr. Wood, drove over the following morning and at his own expense lived at the Riverhouse and did our surgeries for three months until a replacement could be found and vetted. Without his selfless dedication to our community, the St. Charles program and all our efforts would have failed — and yet very few now remain who can remember his dedication and the spirit of mutual respect and cooperation which was so evident in our hospital and involved physicians. That program now stands as a living testimonial of what one good man and a spirit of hospital-physician cooperation can accomplish.

It is indeed time for St. Charles to remember the past — a time when doctors and hospital were on the same team. Perhaps the example set by Dr. Wood might be an incentive to rediscover that the spirit of mutual respect and cooperation can accomplish great things. This community sorely needs it.

— Dr. Tim Hanlon is a cardiologist in Bend.