Dr. C. Walton Lillehei was pioneering open-heart surgery at the University of Minnesota, and found the PM-65 invaluable in maintaining patients whose hearts did not start beating again after surgery. The pacemaker would keep the heart beating until it healed enough to operate once more on its own. (This was usually a week or two.)

When a power failure caused the line-powered PM-65 maintaining one of his patients to fail, Dr. Lillehei asked Earl Bakken to "make something that runs on batteries". Bakken delivered a prototype late in 1957, which was first used on patients in 1958; this prototype gave rise to the 5800-series of Medtronic pacemakers.

Bakken intended this prototype to be used only experimentally on laboratory animals. He was very surprised to come to the University Hospitals one day, and find it in use on a patient. But Dr. Lillehei said that in tests it had been extremely reliable; and he had no intention of holding off use of the best available technology until Medtronic could make an official production pacemaker. It didn't take long for the production models to arrive. Our museum also has a pacemaker from the first production run of ten or so, preserved as a memento by Dr. Lillehei.

Museum Hours: Tuesday - Saturday 10 to 5
Thursdays 10 am to  8pm 
Closed Major Holidays
Library Hours: Monday - Friday 9 to 4:30

Admission: $7 Adults; $5 Students & Seniors; Children 3 and under are FREE!

© The Bakken Updated: April 6, 2007