Little Hearts, Lifelong Impact

For more than four decades, Richard Jonas operated on the smallest and most fragile hearts in medicine. Little Hearts, Lifelong Impact is his memoir of that life — the science and the surgery, but also the questions a textbook never answers: how to negotiate a career, how to balance teaching, research and the operating room, and how a family lives alongside a vocation that deals in life and death every day.

The story runs from his early years in Adelaide, South Australia, through his surgical training in Melbourne, Auckland and Boston, to his leadership of the Heart Institute at Children’s National Hospital in Washington DC and three of the field’s major professional societies. Illustrated throughout and written with candour and warmth, it is intended to inspire those who love a challenge — and never to discourage anyone from entering what the author calls the most rewarding field in the entire spectrum of healthcare.