Edward Diethrich

Diethrich was born in Hillsdale, Michigan in 1935. He attended undergraduate school and medical school at the University of Michigan.[2] He then worked at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, where he worked with surgeon Michael DeBakey.

After moving to Arizona, Diethrich founded the Arizona Heart Institute in 1971, the nation's first freestanding clinic solely devoted to cardiac and vascular diseases. This expanded into the nation's first outpatient cardiac catheterization laboratory in 1979 and the world's first school of cardiac ultrasound in 1982. [3] Diethrich later founded the Arizona Heart Hospital in 1998 and served as its medical director from 1998 to 2010. In 2000, Diethrich performed the first endovascular aneurysm repair (EVAR) for ruptured abdominal aortic aneurysm. Over the course of his career, he co-authored nearly 400 papers and trained several leaders in the fields of vascular and cardiac surgery, including Venkatesh Ramaiah, who succeeded him as medical director of Arizona Heart.[4]

Diethrich achieved national recognition for performing surgery on live television,[5] including on then-Senator Barry Goldwater in 1982.[6]

In his later years, Diethrich became an advocate for the dangers of radiation exposure incurred during his work.[7][8] He passed away in 2017 at age 81 due to complications from a brain tumor.[9]