Former Cape resident involved in groundbreaking pediatric heart surgery methods, using heart parts from living donors

A former Cape Girardeau resident and Notre Dame High School graduate is involved in some groundbreaking surgery procedures that could dramatically increase the number of children helped through organ donation.

Duke HealthDoug Overbey

Doug Overbey, now a congenital heart surgeon and assistant professor of surgery and pediatrics at Duke University, was partially featured on The Today Show which explained how one donated heart kicked off a series of events that saved three girls.

Dubbed a “domino transplant” Overbey explained that surgeons were able to salvage working valves from a heart that was replaced for other reasons. The working valves were implanted into two other girls. The medical case included the first living mitral valve replacement in history. The valves from the “living heart” were implanted into the hearts of two girls from North Carolina. The valves came from a heart that previously would have been discarded. Ultimately, one donated heart led to much-needed heart surgeries for three girls.

The type of surgery that Overbey and his colleague performed is something relatively new. Overbey explained that Duke has done some 20 surgeries using healthy valves in an otherwise unhealthy heart. He said the big benefit of this type of surgery is that the “living” donated valves continue to grow as the child gets older.

“It is a great feeling,” Overbey said. “Because number one, the conversations that we were always having with families and children that need pediatric heart valves is that it was kind of sad, right? Because they would need another surgery. And you're telling them, yes, we can fix your heart problem now, but it's temporary, and you're going to need another valve, and then you'll grow, and you may need another valve after that. And those conversations are not very fulfilling, right? Because everyone is always worried about the uncertainty of future operations, and so this takes care of that, because if you can get one valve, it'll continue to grow. That may be the last valve you ever need, and that's what we've seen so far.”

Overbey and his colleague Dr. Joe Turek developed the concept of using valves from the recipient of a donated heart. They knew that full hearts transplanted into children would grow with the child. And they knew that hearts that were removed could still have healthy valves. Duke was able to use foundational grants to study and simulate the procedure.

“The first several were done at Duke,” Overbey said. “And that was three years ago. And so then it took us about a year before other institutions started hearing about this and calling us to ask us about how to do it and setting up ways that they could also do it at their institutions. And since then, now we've heard of five other institutions in the United States that have done a version of partial heart transplant, but all the rest that have been done are in that aortic or pulmonary position, and so this is still the first one on the mitral side. But I hope it's just like those other ones we did, where eventually other institutions will offer it. Because we want this to become more frequent. We want more people to benefit from this, both from domino transplants and from splitting the heart into multiple valves that can be used. There's lots of ways where there can be more beneficiaries of each heart transplant that's done in the United States.”

In this particular case, a girl named Journi Kelly received the full heart transplant having been diagnosed with heart failure. Now parts of her heart reside in two other girls.

"Before Journi's surgery, we were told the doctors were hoping to try a new procedure and asked if we were willing to donate Journi's old heart," Rachel Kelly, Journi's stepmom, told ABC News Channel 11 in North Carolina. "They explained to us that they could use the healthy parts of it to help other kids. Our next question was, 'Where do we sign?'"

Overbey is the son of Dan Overbey, who retired after 25 years as the director at the SEMO Port. The younger Overbey said he worked quite a bit at the port, which is where he learned to use his hands. He joked that heart surgery is essentially plumbing for the body.

Overbey didn't mention that he also taught karate at a local karate studio in Cape Girardeau as a teenager.

But he did credit Notre Dame for preparing him academically before heading off to the University of Missouri, where he earned an undergraduate degree in biochemistry and then medical school. He connected with Mizzou thanks to the Conley Scholars Program. From there, he went to the University of Colorado for seven years of general surgery training and cardiothoracic training.

He ended up at Duke, where he has performed heart surgeries, taught and conducted research for the last six years.

He said he visits family in Cape Girardeau three or four times per year, and remains a die-hard Mizzou football fan, though he admits his basketball fandom has strongly turned to his employer, a perennial college basketball powerhouse.

He chuckled when asked if he could have imagined the work he’s doing now while a high school kid at Notre Dame.

“They don't do pediatric heart surgery in Cape, Girardeau, Missouri,” he said. “They don't do it. It's not offered. They do it up at WashU. They do it at Memphis, but they don't do it there. And so I think for people that are in high school or from smaller towns, there are definitely other areas out there and other things that you can be involved in and see along the way. And so don't limit yourself. And obviously, try to get exposure to as many different areas as you can to help forge whatever you think is the best career path.”