Page 14 - 2023-Mar-Apr-Journal

HeartGift Founder,

Dr. John “Chip” Oswalt Credits Serendipity

for Many of His Accomplishments

By Leanne DuPay

ritish writer and politician his father who influenced him—
Horace Walpole wrote 3,000 enter his father’s best friend—
Bletters during his lifetime. In Dr. Bud Dryden, a GP who treated
1754, one of those letters everyone, all races and accepted
introduced the word “serendipity.” livestock for payment when patients
He invented the word after reading had no money. He treated firemen
a Persian fairy tale called “The Three and policemen for free. “When he
Princes of Serendip.” Throughout died, they blocked MoPac and lined
the tale, the characters happen upon the streets with firemen and law
good fortune again and again. The enforcement, all with their hats off,”
Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines Oswalt remembers. “I loved
serendipity as “finding valuable or that guy.”
pleasant things that are not looked As an intern at Brackenridge
for.” In simpler terms, serendipity Hospital, Oswalt was determined to HeartGift founders Dr. Oswalt and Ray Wilkerson
means “a happy accident.” be with the best surgeons around.
“My whole life has been infused “In my mind these were the heart Central Texas—a group known for
with serendipity,” says a smiling docs—Calhoon, Arnold, Tate, and pioneering a record number of
Dr. John “Chip” Oswalt. “It just Kirksey,” he explains. “One morning medical “firsts” in Central Texas. As
happens. I can’t complain.” Oswalt I am having breakfast with them, and Austin continued to grow, so did the
comes from a family of physicians. they get a stat call for a blood clot in need for a local transplant program.
His father, Charles “Ozzie” Oswalt the lung of a woman who had just In the fall of 1985 Oswalt and Drs.
was a doctor, and his three brothers are given birth. She was going to die.” Arnold, Calhoon, and Dilling
physicians. “We grew up in medicine Because he was sitting with these traveled to Stanford to learn how to
—we saw the good Dad did doctors, Oswalt was included in the set up a transplant program. By
and it influenced us.” response team. He remembers February 1986, they were back in
But it wasn’t just thinking, “THIS IS IT!” Austin. The new Seton Central Texas
It was his chance to Heart Institute was established, and
prove himself and Oswalt was on the surgical team
bond with these that performed the first local
cardiothoracic heart transplant.
physicians. “We Serendipity was in play again
saved her, when Oswalt traveled to England to
and I became a heart valve conference where he
part of the hoped to learn the Ross Procedure.
group.” The Ross Procedure was first
Joining performed by Dr. Donald Ross in
Cardiothoracic and 1967. The surgery involves using
Vascular Surgeons living tissue for valve replacement as

(CTVS) in 1980, opposed to a mechanical valve. After
Oswalt was now part a long day of training, Oswalt and
of one of the leading his wife walked to a nearby pub. It
physician groups in wasn’t long before Dr. Ross himself
Dr. Oswalt poses with a patient after her successful surgery.
14 2023 March • April TCMS