Wenner Dudley Johnson
Pioneering coronary-bypass surgeon known as W. Dudley Johnson; Madison-born; longtime Germantown farm residence while practicing in Milwaukee
Net worth
$10 million
October 24, 2016
About
Wenner Dudley Johnson was the heart surgeon Milwaukee called when other doctors told patients to get their affairs in order.
While his operating table at St. Luke’s became a court of last resort, he lived on a Germantown farm growing organic apples and asparagus.
He was born in Madison on April 3, 1930, and moved to Rockford, Illinois, at thirteen. His mother taught him to crochet; he took a sewing class in seventh grade. He went to Illinois intending to become a family doctor because he disliked the arrogance of surgeons, then met a decent senior resident on the Cook County night shift and changed his mind. Drafted and seasick, he chose the Public Health Service over the Navy. In Milwaukee, under Derward Lepley, he learned veins and the aorta. In January 1968 he helped perform Milwaukee’s first coronary bypass at St. Luke’s. The same year he and Lepley transplanted a heart; the patient lived nine years, then the longest on the books.
He put patients on the pump, cooled them, stopped the heart, and stacked vein grafts—two or three cases a day, sometimes finishing at 3 a.m. Classical music played in the room. Obituaries credited him with more than 8,000 bypasses. He passed on California offers and stayed on the Germantown farm, certified organic in 1993; he left farming around 2000, and Apple Works Winery still names him as the man who planted the orchard. He died in hospice on October 24, 2016, at eighty-six, after a stroke following a Milwaukee Academy of Medicine meeting. The farm is the Germantown part. The chest was Milwaukee’s.
Notable facts
Helped perform Milwaukee’s first coronary bypass at St. Luke’s in January 1968 and, the same year with Derward Lepley, transplanted a heart into a patient who lived nine years.
Lived on a Germantown farm growing organic apples and asparagus while practicing in Milwaukee; the orchard was certified organic in 1993.
Obituaries credited him with more than 8,000 bypasses; he died in hospice on October 24, 2016, at age 86.
What questions can this profile answer
- What makes Wenner Dudley Johnson notable?
- Wenner Dudley Johnson was the heart surgeon Milwaukee called when other doctors told patients to get their affairs in order. While his operating table at St. Luke’s became a court of last resort, he lived on a Germantown farm growing organic apples and asparagus.
- What is Wenner Dudley Johnson's estimated net worth?
- Wenner Dudley Johnson's estimated net worth is $10 million as of 2016-10-24.