Howard Dully

In 2007, Dully published My Lobotomy, a memoir co-authored by Charles Fleming. The memoir relates Dully's experiences as a child, the effect of the procedure on his life, his efforts as an adult to discover why the medically unnecessary procedure was performed on him and the effect of the radio broadcast on his life.

In his 50s, with the assistance of National Public Radio producer David Isay, Dully started to research what had happened to him as a child. By this time, both his stepmother and Freeman were dead, and due to the aftereffects of the surgery, he was unable to rely on his own memories. He travelled the country with Isay and Piya Kochhar, speaking with members of his family, relatives of other lobotomy patients, and relatives of Freeman, and also gaining access to Freeman's archives. Dully first relayed his story on a National Public Radio broadcast in 2005, prior to co-authoring a memoir published in 2007.

On November 16, 2005, Isay broadcast Dully's search as a Sound Portraits documentary on NPR. According to USA Today, the documentary, which The New York Times describes as "celebrated", "created a firestorm". The broadcast, aired on All Things Considered, drew more listener response than any other program that had ever aired, and by May 2006, the Crown Publishing Group had negotiated worldwide rights to publish Dully's story in book form.

Neurologist Walter Freeman had diagnosed Dully as suffering from childhood schizophrenia since age four, although numerous other medical and psychiatric professionals who had seen Dully did not detect a psychiatric disorder. In 1960, at 12 years of age, Dully was submitted by his father and stepmother for a trans-orbital lobotomy, performed by Dr. Freeman for $200. During the procedure, a long, sharp instrument called an orbitoclast was inserted through each of Dully's eye sockets 7 cm (2.75 inches) into his brain.

Howard Dully (born November 30, 1948) is one of the youngest recipients and survivors of the transorbital lobotomy, a procedure performed on him when he was 12 years old. Dully received international attention in 2005, following the broadcasting of his story on National Public Radio. Subsequently, in 2007, he published a New York Times Best Seller memoir, My Lobotomy, a story of the hardships of his lobotomy, co-authored by Charles Fleming.

Dully was born on November 30, 1948, in Oakland, California, the eldest son of Rodney and June Louise Pierce Dully. Following the death of his mother from cancer in 1954, Dully's father married single mother Shirley Lucille Hardin in 1955.