George E. Green (doctor)

Green was the first cardiac surgeon to successfully perform a left coronary artery bypass graft using the internal thoracic artery sutured to the left anterior descending coronary artery to bypass obstruction to the heart circulation in the 1968. At the time, many experts believed that the internal mammary artery was too small for splicing into the coronary arteries. The bypass called for 20 stitches to be taken to attach the vessel. "Many years ago George Green stood alone in support of the internal mammary artery as a superior conduit," Dr. John L. Ochsner of the Ochsner Clinic in New Orleans had written. "In the years since, many of us have joined his ranks."

In an excerpt from Green's, "After 50 years, a personal reflection on the development of internal thoracic artery (ITA) grafting", he reported that, "Although the procedure had been prohibited at the New York University Hospital, David Tice, Director of Surgery at the affiliated New York Veterans Administration Hospital, invited me to do it there. I did the first internal thoracic artery (ITA)-left anterior descending (LAD) artery anastomosis in the United States there in February of 1968.

In 1968 Green was a spokesman for the research team at the New York University of Medicine at the annual Clinical Congress of American College of Surgeons sharing the outcomes of 12 patients in which he had performed the surgery. In 1971 he documented his research and work on coronary artery bypass grafts for congestive heart failure; a report of experiences with 40 patients in The Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery (supported in part by a grant from the National Heart and Lung Institutes of the National Institutes of Health), which was read at the 51st Annual Meeting of The American Association for Thoracic Surgery, in Atlanta, Georgia in April 1971. In 1972, at the "Coronary Artery Surgery Clifton Symposium Topic", Williams Glenn, chief of surgery at Yale School of Medicine, spoke against operating on the heart's arteries while Green gave arguments for it. In 1973 he spoke on the topic at the scientific sessions at American Heart Association, Pennsylvania Affiliate. Green served as President of the International Symposium Internal Thoracic Artery for Myocardial Revascularization in the early 1990s and has lectured in France, Sweden, Norway, Germany, Greece, England, and Argentina, among others.

George E. Green is an American cardiac surgeon best known for pioneering and implementing the first surgical procedure of the left coronary artery bypass graft using the internal thoracic artery sutured to the left anterior descending coronary artery to bypass obstruction to the heart circulation in the late 1960s. He applied these techniques in 1968 at New York University Medical Center and in 1970 he was hired to establish St. Luke's Hospital's (now Mount Sinai Morningside) cardiac surgery program in Manhattan, New York, that by 1982 was seeing approximately 1,800 cases a year, the biggest program in the state. Green has lectured internationally on the topic and has written numerous reports on internal thoracic artery grafting as well as co-authoring, Surgical Revascularization of the Heart: The Internal Thoracic Arteries.

George E. Green was born (January 18, 1932) and raised in Brooklyn, New York where he attended grade school and high school. He attended Yale College and graduated from Yale School of Medicine then returned to New York to intern at Bellevue Hospital and complete a residency at Saint Vincent's Hospital and the Veterans Administration Hospital. In 1962 -1964 he served as a surgeon, U.S.N.R active duty at U.S. Naval Hospital, in Camp Pendleton, CA and also completed a residency in thoracic and cardiovascular surgery from 1966 to 1968 at New York University Medical Center.