Notes from the President — Loma Linda's Own Icon

Other descriptors could be used, but let me stick with icon. When applied to a human, it includes someone who is both successful and greatly admired. And by any account, Leonard L. Bailey, MD, LLUSM class of 1969, would be considered an icon. And now that my friend and colleague, Len, is fighting the battle of his life with recurrent throat cancer, it is time we talk about his impact on Loma Linda University Health and the world beyond.

By his own telling, Len has had a few wake-up moments in his life, beginning as a sophomore college student. Walter Clark, our Dean of Admissions at Loma Linda University at the time, confronted this eager young student with the caution — “if you think you are going to be a doctor, you’ve got to do better than you’re doing now.” As with many of us at that age, Len was enjoying life, including dating his future wife, Nancy, who, according to others, had eyes only for this tall, handsome upperclassman.

Len tried to buckle down at Columbia Union College, but his second wake-up call came when he was not accepted into Loma Linda University School of Medicine on his first application. As most of us know, self-doubt can creep in at moments like this. Do I really want this? Is it worth trying again? Len dug deep into his own soul and determined to keep trying, to overcome any questions by refocusing and trying harder. These developing characteristics would pay dividends later in his career.

With his acceptance a year later finally in hand, Len and Nancy moved to Loma Linda to begin medical school. But three weeks in, facing his first major test, he was again plagued with that ultimate question — can I make it? Is this for me? He drove that evening slowly through Loma Linda, finally parking in a random driveway to wrestle with God. After a few minutes, a gentleman noticed this strange car in his driveway and came out to ask how he could help. Len mumbled an apology and took courage from that kind offer to continue his studies. 

During his second year in medicine, in 1967, Dr. Louis Smith performed the first transplant at Loma Linda University Health, a successful kidney transplant. This inspired all of us at the time, and set the wheels turning in Len’s brain about a potential career. After graduating in 1969, he stayed here for a surgery residency followed by a fellowship in pediatric cardio-thoracic surgery at The Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. It was during his residency years that Len caught his lifelong vision as he watched children born with congenital heart diseases being sent home to die. With mechanical hearts still years away, and our ability to provide immunosuppression in its infancy, he knew the challenges, but insisted on nurturing the dream.                                          

Upon returning to Loma Linda, he found Lou Smith’s lab largely empty due to his growing clinical load, and convinced the chair of surgery, Dr. David Hinshaw, to give him some time to reactivate the lab and begin the long journey toward possible infant heart transplantation. He began experimenting with goats, sheep and monkeys, trying various techniques. The issue was not primarily the mechanical ones encountered in surgery, but the ability to manage rejection in cross-species matches. 

With the introduction of cyclosporines, and after performing 150 experimental transplants, Len sensed the time was coming closer to try this on infants. They had switched to baboons as the best animal option, and had a cohort of potential donors available in the lab when the call came from another hospital where a baby had been born with hypo-plastic left heart syndrome, leaving it only days to live. So they invited Teresa Beauclair to bring her infant daughter, Stephanie Fae, down to Loma Linda to discuss this experimental option.  Len had assembled a full team by that time, including Sandra Nehlsen-Cannarella, an immunologist, and they felt ready to make this historic step toward saving lives. They had only an inkling of the media response and degree of coverage, both positive and negative, that would come from that fateful surgery on October 26, 1984.

Those final 21 days of Baby Fae’s life were intense for all of them. Literally living in the NICU, they watched each bodily function, and were eventually dismayed when her body started to fail, even though the heart was strong. In the end, the cause of her death remains uncertain. When Len finally faced the press with this heart-breaking news that was heard around the world, his voice broke with emotion and many reporters’ and TV crews’ eyes filled with tears, even as he vowed to move on in his effort to save these babies.

It was a year later that Len received a call from a hospital in the Bay Area with a potential donor heart from a baby that had asphyxiated. The doctor and family wondered if they could use it. They sure could! Baby Moses was waiting, and received that first successful infant-to-infant heart transplant and is alive and well today. And with that came the development of a donor system for infants and a growing transplant program at Loma Linda, with hundreds of recipients now living successful lives. While other teaching hospitals have taken up this challenging service, Loma Linda has still done more infant heart transplants than anywhere else in the world.

Dr. Bailey moved on to become Chair of our Department of Surgery, staying clinically active for the next 30 plus years. And it was perhaps during these later years, as fame and calls for scientific and motivational talks poured in, that Len has served us best. With his self-deprecating humor and humble demeanor, telling his own life journey, he has inspired countless students to strive for their best. He has become a senior statesman, a known figure on this campus and community, representing the best of Loma Linda. He has also trained countless heart surgeons around the world on these special techniques. It will be our privilege to bestow on him the Lifetime Service Award, our highest honor, at graduation in May. 

Most major events in the life of an institution unfold slowly, usually over months or even years. This one happened in a few hours and suddenly catapulted Loma Linda into national and international prominence. While that was not Len’s goal, he gave this institution a confidence to take on bigger challenges, even while saving the lives of the least of these.  Thank you, Len, for what you have meant to Loma Linda University Health and the world, now and into the future.

Richard Hart, MD, DrPH
President
Loma Linda University Health