Remembering Pioneering Heart Surgeon and Former Cleveland Clinic CEO Floyd D. Loop, MD (1936-2015)

The cardiovascular healthcare community lost one of its giants last week with the June 11 death of pioneering heart surgeon Floyd D. Loop, MD, at age 78. The loss was especially acute at Cleveland Clinic, where Dr. Loop was on staff for three and a half decades, including long tenures as Chairman and CEO as well as Chairman of the Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery.

“The legacy of Dr. Loop is all around us,” says Toby Cosgrove, MD, current CEO and President of Cleveland Clinic. “We can never forget all he’s done to make Cleveland Clinic one of the world’s great medical centers.”

A master cardiac surgeon

Known to friends and colleagues as “Fred,” Dr. Loop was the son of a country doctor from Lafayette, Indiana. He graduated from Purdue University in his home state and earned his medical degree at George Washington University in Washington, D.C. After postgraduate training at George Washington University, with the U.S. Air Force at Andrews A.F.B., and at Cleveland Clinic, he joined Cleveland Clinic as a cardiac surgeon in 1970.

Dr. Loop’s training in Cleveland coincided with the beginning of coronary artery bypass graft surgery (CABG), and he played an important role in its development and refinement, including publishing the landmark 1986 New England Journal of Medicine paper establishing the superiority of using the internal mammary artery in CABG procedures. As a young surgeon at Cleveland Clinic, he benefited from mentoring by CABG pioneers René Favaloro, MD, and Donald Effler, MD, and as well as the father or coronary angiography, F. Mason Sones, Jr., MD.

Dr. Loop went on to perform more than 12,000 cardiac surgeries and to author more than 350 papers on all aspects of cardiovascular surgery. In addition to his leadership in establishing the internal mammary artery graft as the gold standard for CABG, he refined arterial grafting in other ways, improved reoperative techniques and led comprehensive follow-up studies of bypass patients. He also was instrumental in establishing the world’s first computerized registry of cardiac surgery outcomes.

A visionary surgical leader

In 1975, Dr. Loop was named chairman of Cleveland Clinic’s Department of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. Under his watch over the next 14 years, the department doubled its volume of cases and assembled a team of expert surgeons who would go on to lead their specialty and set the pace for years to come. The result was a consolidated reputation as one of the world’s great cardiac surgery centers.

Over three decades as an active surgeon, Dr. Loop was named an honorary member of a dozen international medical organizations, served on the editorial boards of 15 medical journals, and taught at countless cardiology and surgical meetings around the world. In addition to serving as President of the American Association for Thoracic Surgery in 1997-98, he was the honored guest lecturer at the European Association for Cardiothoracic Surgery in 1998.

Leadership far beyond cardiac surgery

Dr. Loop was named Cleveland Clinic’s CEO in 1989 and soon after was elected Chairman of its Board of Governors, guiding Cleveland Clinic through an era of unprecedented growth and expansion. Under his leadership, Cleveland Clinic was named one of America’s 10 best hospitals for more than 10 years in a row in U.S. News & World Report’s newly instituted “Best Hospitals” survey.

Dr. Floyd (Fred) Loop during his tenure as Cleveland Clinic CEO and Chairman.

Although Dr. Loop lacked formal management and business training, he brought to his new role the intensity of focus and the judicious risk-taking that distinguished him as a surgeon. His challenges included declining reimbursement, potential competition from private hospital systems and the need to preserve Cleveland Clinic’s specialty focus amid a growing demand for primary services.

In response, he stabilized finances, centralized authority and streamlined reporting relationships. His strategy to improve regional access resulted in the construction of family health ambulatory centers across Northeast Ohio and the acquisition of eight community hospitals throughout the 1990s. At the same time, he invested heavily in information technology, laying the groundwork for a comprehensive electronic medical records system.

With a leadership gift of $100 million from Alfred Lerner and family, Dr. Loop launched a philanthropic campaign that enabled construction of many new buildings on Cleveland Clinic’s main campus — including the Lerner Research Institute, Cole Eye Institute and Taussig Cancer Center — as well as establishment of the Cleveland Clinic Lerner College of Medicine of Case Western Reserve University. The latter, whose novel mission is to train physician investigators, was a project particularly dear to his heart.

In 2001, Dr. Loop announced plans for the current Miller Family Pavilion to consolidate heart and vascular services at a single location. With modifications and the addition of the Glickman Tower, the new facility was completed as the home of the new Sydell and Arnold Miller Family Heart & Vascular Institute under the administration of Dr. Cosgrove in 2008.

A multifaceted legacy

Dr. Loop retired as CEO in 2004. He continued to advise and mentor, and he served on various private and public corporate boards. His book Leadership and Medicine was published in 2009.

“As a cardiac surgeon and physician leader, his contributions to medicine and to the growth of Cleveland Clinic will be remembered forever,” says Dr. Cosgrove.

“He will be remembered by all of us who knew him as the epitome of a renaissance man and for his moral commitment to loyalty and truth in all aspects of dealing with patients and his colleagues,” adds Lars G. Svensson, MD, PhD, Chairman of the Miller Family Heart & Vascular Institute.

At the time of his retirement as CEO, Dr. Loop summed up his career at Cleveland Clinic in this way: “We’re all here to do the best possible job, and that’s what I tried to do. I think I leave it better than I found it.”

Indeed he did.