Heart Transplant

Richard R. Shinn, 81, who joined MetLife as a $15-a-week mailroom employee in 1939 and rose to become chairman and chief executive officer, died Friday in Greenwich, Conn.Under his leadership, MetLife became the industry's foremost provider of group insurance and entered the property and casualty insurance and reinsurance business.He assumed key roles in national and state public policy issues, including membership on the panel that averted New York City's financial crisis in the mid-1970s.

THE TELEPHONE rang in Howard Golden's home Wednesday night, and the woman on the other end of the line, calling from Johns Hopkins Hospital, keeping a professional grip on her composure, said, "They may have a heart for you.""Oh, my God," said Golden.The words arrived at the end of 16 months of anticipation. Golden awaits a heart transplant. He is 57 years old and chief judge of the Orphans' Court for Baltimore City. He has suffered two heart attacks in the last 15 years and knows what it is to contemplate his own demise.

Judith Colwell Lininger, a heart transplant patient whose illness inspired her to help others, died of heart failure Thursday at her Lutherville home. She was 57.A native of Teaneck, N.J., Mrs. Lininger graduated with a degree in art from Otterbein College in Westerville, Ohio, in 1964.In 1962, she married John L. Lininger, whom she had met in college. The couple lived in Havre de Grace and in Bel Air before moving to Lutherville three years ago.Mrs. Lininger was a homemaker and substitute teacher who enjoyed painting portraits of children.

Living television-free easier said than doneThank you for giving front-page attention March 1 to choosing to live without television ("What's on TV? Who cares?").The article covered most of the reasons people choose to live TV-free: its constant stream of sex, violence, obfuscation of morals and authority, commotion, materialistic manipulation, dominating presence in home life, coarse language, gimmickry, etc.The small number of good programs are crowded out by simple-minded programming and commercials.

The dying heart cells of many people with heart failure can be brought back to life with the help of a mechanical pump that temporarily takes over their function -- a finding that could dramatically alter the future treatment of the nearly 5 million Americans with congestive heart failure.Cardiologists have always assumed that, once damaged, heart tissues could never recover. But a new report in today's Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association confirms a growing number of anecdotal reports that damaged cells can regain much of their normal function.

Saundra Elizabeth Banks, the city Circuit Court clerk for as long as the position existed, died Sunday at Johns Hopkins Hospital from complications from a heart transplant. She was 49.During her 14 years in the elected position, the former Saundra Smith developed a reputation as a problem-solver and dedicated worker who loved her job."I really can't say enough about her," said Joseph H. H. Kaplan, the Circuit Court's administrative judge, who worked with Mrs. Banks for almost 20 years. "My only hope is we ultimately find someone who can be half the person she was."

Here's what I see from Al Montgomery's hospital bedside: a 37-year-old mechanic, a fixer of machines, now dependent on a machine for his very life.I see a husband and a wife living not only with the emotional stress that comes with the wait for a heart transplant, but with the multiple realities of American life loss of a job, loss of income, uncertainty about medical insurance.And I see the paradox of the modern medical miracle its power to extend a man's life, its potential to leave him financially devastated.

NEW YORK -- The players piled on top of one another, the coaches jumped into manager Joe Torre's arms, the sound system blared, "New York, New York."For a moment there, it seemed as if the entire city -- heck, theentire country except Baltimore -- was singing along.C'mon, admit it.If you like baseball, you like the Yankees.The world champion Yankees, courtesy of last night's 3-2 victory over Atlanta in Game 6 of the World Series.Once upon a time, there was a Broadway musical called "Damn Yankees," featuring the song, "You gotta have heart."

NEW YORK -- The players piled on top of one another, the coaches jumped into manager Joe Torre's arms, the sound system blared, "New York, New York."For a moment there, it seemed as if the entire city -- heck, theentire country except for Baltimore -- was singing along.C'mon, admit it.If you like baseball, you like the Yankees.The world champion Yankees, courtesy of last night's 3-2 victory over Atlanta in Game 6 of the World Series.It ended with the tying run at second and Mark Lemke popping up to third baseman Charlie Hayes in foul territory.

William H. Tompkins Jr., a retired Marriott Corp. executive who was also one of Johns Hopkins Hospital's longest-living heart transplant recipients, died of pneumonia Tuesday at the hospital. The Woodstock resident was 62.Mr. Tompkins retired in 1984 as a Marriott vice president in charge of health-care services at 55 hospitals throughout the nation.He began his career with the food-service, restaurant, hotel and theme-park corporation as a "curber" at Marriott's Hot Shoppe in Roslyn, Va., waiting on customers who arrived by car at the drive-in.

Event is second to one for greatest viewership super bowl The Arizona-Pittsburgh matchup riveted an estimated audience of 95.4 million people, second only to last year's game as the most-watched Super Bowl. Viewership peaked in the fourth quarter, when the Cardinals took the lead on Larry Fitzgerald's 64-yard catch and sprint to the end zone only to have it snatched back when Santonio Holmes' end zone leap gave the Steelers the 27-23 win Sunday night. More than 100 million Americans watched between 9:30 p.m. and 10 p.m., according to Nielsen Media Research.

Sabathia, Yankees agree to 7-year, $161M deal baseball CC Sabathia and the New York Yankees agreed yesterday on the framework for a seven-year, $161 million contract, the richest for a pitcher in baseball history. Sabathia has the right to opt out after three seasons and become a free agent again. He also gets a full no-trade clause. Sabathia will give the Yankees a new marquee star as they head into the new $1.3 billion Yankee Stadium. "It's all subject on the physical," Yankees co-chairman Hank Steinbrenner said.

DR. ADRIAN KANTROWITZ, 90 Heart transplant pioneer Dr. Adrian Kantrowitz, a cardiac surgeon who performed the nation's first human heart transplant and who also developed lifesaving medical implants, died Friday in Ann Arbor, Mich., of complications from heart failure. In 1967, Dr. Kantrowitz performed the first human heart transplant in the United States, three days after the world's first was performed in South Africa. But the transplant, on an infant who died several hours later, was only a small part of his life's work to solve the problem of heart failure, said his wife, Jean Kantrowitz.

Joan Leslie Tieperman, a 20-year heart transplant survivor and former elementary school teacher, died Aug. 10 at her home in Woodstock in Howard County. She was 66. Family members said she died of complications related to her heart transplant. Joan Leslie Abbott was born in Baltimore and raised in Pimlico. She attended St. Ambrose Parochial School and was a 1960 Seton High School graduate. She earned an associate's degree from the old Baltimore Junior College, where she met her future husband, Joseph F. Tieperman Jr., a Rouse Co. financial officer who helped create Columbia in the 1960s.

If ever there were picnickers who could truly appreciate yesterday's warm, late-spring breezes, sunny blue skies and quiet Howard County scenery, it was the group who gathered in Patapsco State Park. "Didn't God bless us with a wonderful day today?" Carolyn Kramer asked the 50 people gathered around her. For 22 years, every day has been wonderful for Kramer, because she's alive - thanks to an anonymous donor's heart. This was the Annual Heart Transplant Picnic, attended by about two dozen heart recipients - "transplants," as they call themselves - and their relatives.

If your heart is failing, your chances of getting a new one might hang on whether your local transplant center concludes that you're too old, too fat or too sick to qualify for a precious donor heart. If you're turned down, you can shop around and might get a more sympathetic hearing at a hospital in another city, or even across town. Critics say the criteria that hospitals in Baltimore, across the country and around the world use to select patients for life-saving transplants are inconsistent and sometimes arbitrary - with too little foundation in current science.

Federal regulators approved yesterday the first fully implantable artificial heart, which is to be used by dying heart failure patients who are not eligible for transplants. The device, called AbioCor, was tested in 14 patients who lived an average of five months after receiving the mechanical heart. The Food and Drug Administration said it approved the artificial heart for humanitarian use, which means the device was not tested in large clinical trials but might benefit 4,000 or fewer people a year.

William Michael Bailey, a longtime heart transplant survivor whose career teaching economics at Washington College spanned more than three decades, died of cancer Saturday at Chester River Hospital Center. The Chestertown resident was 68. Born in Hobbs, N.M., and raised in Fort Worth, Texas, he earned a bachelor's degree in economics in 1959 from North Texas State University in Denton. He earned a master's in economics from the University of Maryland, College Park and earned his doctorate there in 1973.

Author of `Jaws,' Peter Benchley dies at 65 Peter Benchley, 65, whose novel Jaws terrified millions of swimmers even as the author became an advocate for the conservation of sharks, died Saturday at his home in Princeton, N.J. The cause of death was idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis, a progressive and fatal scarring of the lungs, said his wife, Wendy Benchley. Thanks to Mr. Benchley's 1974 novel, and Steven Spielberg's blockbuster movie of the same name, the simple act of ocean swimming became synonymous with fatal horror, of still water followed by ominous, pumping music, then teeth and blood and panic.

Shawn Henson was fading fast. Four days after his first wedding anniversary, a failing heart had turned his once-confident walk to a shuffle. His legs swelled. Within weeks, he was all but confined to bed. Henson, 40, needed a heart transplant. But as an interim step, the slightly built Baltimore warehouse supervisor chose to become the first person in the United States to receive a new-generation heart pump that physicians hope could eventually be a transplant alternative. "I'm almost back to my old self," Henson said yesterday at a news conference with his wife, Alaphia, little more than a month after his operation at the University of Maryland Medical Center.