Dr. Thomas Donovan, an early researcher in the field of cardiac surgery who established the open heart surgery program at Hartford Hospital, died peacefully on April 6, 2011 at the Caleb Hitchock Health Center at Duncaster, in Bloomfield, Connecticut, where he received expert care and was surrounded by loving family. He was 88. After completing medical education at Harvard Medical School in 1946 and fifteen months of surgical residency at Boston City Hospital, Dr. Donovan continued training at the Mallory Research Laboratory and on the earliest thoracic surgical service in Boston under Dr. Dwight Harkin, the pioneering cardiac surgeon. In 1947, prior to the advent of the heart lung machine and open heart surgery, Dr. Donovan assisted Dr. Harkin in an early clinical trial of closed mitral valve surgery in an attempt to manually restore blood flow through a constricted cardiac valve. He later chronicled these earliest days of modern cardiac surgery and his own professional research and clinical experiences in a 2 part series published in Connecticut Medicine, the Journal of the Connecticut State Medical Society, in 2001. From 1947 to l949, as part of the wartime V-12 program, Dr. Donovan established a surgical research program at the National Naval Medical Research Institute in Bethesda, Maryland. There he studied the properties and suitability of new polymers such as teflon, polyethylene and lucite for use as artificial blood vessels, bypasses (shunts) and artificial heart valves. In 1948, in the pre-open heart era, he and Dr. Harold Meryman designed and fabricated the first prosthetic cardiac ball valve and studied its use in in vitro and canine experiments. Similarly materials, techniques and instrumentation for use relating to synthetic vascular shunts, including those lined with native veins, were studied in dogs as a basis for clinical application to humans. In 1949, Dr. Donovan returned to Harvard Medical School, the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital and the Boston City Hospital for further research and clinical training in cardiothoracic surgery under Dr. Francis Moore and Dr. Dwight Harkin. His research work included a successful series of canine aortic valve bypass operations using a ball valve fused to a biological graft as well as a three year longitudinal study of successful canine pulmonic valve shunts using a Lucite ball valve attached to a Dacron cloth graft. In l956, Dr. Donovan established a clinical practice and research program at Hartford Hospital in Hartford, Connecticut. This included leadership of the design and development of a cardiopulmonary (heart-lung) bypass system using specifications similar to those used for the first machines delivered to the Brigham hospital. Dr. Donovan performed the first open heart surgery at Hartford Hospital, the repair of an atrial septal defect, in 1959. The patient was well at follow up 20 years later. He also performed the first heart (mitral) valve replacement surgery at the hospital in l962, also successful; the patient was well for 9 years until his death from prostate cancer. Over the course of a 30 year practice he continued to innovate and study novel surgical techniques, procedures and materials as well as the inflammatory and immunological responses to biological and non-biological vascular conduits. He was a founding member of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons as well as a founding officer of the New England Vascular Society, later serving as its President in l988. In his post retirement years he attended and taught at the surgery clinic at the West Haven VA Hospital, he taught anatomy at the University of Connecticut Medical School and he continued to pursue basic research in vascular surgery. He published numerous scientific papers during his career; his last research was published in 2000 in the Journal of Cardiovascular Surgery at age 78. Thomas Donovan was born and raised in Houlton, Maine on July 25, l922, son of Dr. Joseph Donovan and Mary O'Hare Donovan. Born into a family of physicians and surgeons, his great uncle, John Donovan was a surgeon and Chief of Staff of the Lewiston Maine General Hospital, his father Joseph Donovan was a general practitioner and general surgeon and his younger brother, James Donovan, became an orthopedic surgeon in Hartford. As a child, young Tom accompanied his father on house calls in rural Maine, traveling by sleigh in winter. He graduated from Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine and later Harvard Medical School, following in the footsteps of his father as well as his maternal uncle, Dr. James O'Hare, Professor of Medicine there. Dr. Donovan held a lifelong admiration for medical pioneers and wrote of his early training and research experience among pivotal figures in cardiac surgery and related fields in the Connecticut Medicine series. He also assembled, over his career, a personal collection of historical surgical instruments, devices and prototypes which is now permanently housed in the Cardiovascular Surgery Department at the Brigham and Womens Hospital in Boston. Dr. Donovan was married to Harriet Johnson in 1953 and they raised seven children in Manchester Connecticut. He shared with his family a love of music, often singing and playing the trumpet for family and friends. A founding member of St. Bartholomew's Catholic Church in Manchester, in his later years he anchored the bass section in the church choir under the direction of his daughter, Jane Peacock. A former left tackle on the Bowdoin football team, he was a gifted athlete, tennis player and golfer as well as an unwavering Red Sox fan. Survivors include Harriet, his wife of 57 years, a brother, Dr. James Donovan of Kennebunk, Maine and seven children and spouses: Susan Donovan and Mario Rendon of Hercules, California, Kathryn and Jeffrey Wiegand of New Rochelle, New York, Nancy Donovan and Elliot Ehrich of Lincoln, Massachusetts, Jane and Kenneth Peacock of Vernon, Connecticut, Thomas and Rita Donovan of Manchester, Connecticut, Paul and Carol Donovan Kaminski of Katonah, New York and Joseph and Loretta Donovan of Vernon, Connecticut. He is also survived by fourteen grandchildren: Francisco Rendon, Rebecca Wiegand, Daniel Wiegand, Emma Wiegand, Natalie Wiegand, Daria Wiegand, Frank Wiegand, William Ehrich, Fiona Ehrich, Kara Donovan, Brian Donovan, Brunon Kaminski, Samantha Donovan and Abigail Donovan. A Mass of Christian Burial will be celebrated on Saturday (April 16th) 1 pm at St. Bartholomew Church 45 Ludlow Road Manchester, CT. Family and friends may call at the John F. Tierney Funeral Home 219 West Center St. Manchester on Friday from 4-8 pm. A prayer service with sharing of memories will be held at 8 pm. In lieu of flowers, memorial contributions may be made to Hartford Hospital for the Dr. and Mrs. Thomas J. Donovan Fund, Fund Development Department, 80 Seymour Street, P.O. Box 5037, Hartford, CT 06102-5037, or on-line at www.harthosp.org/giving. For online condolences please visit www.tierneyfuneralhome.com.