While not (yet) on the path to sainthood, a local well known doctor certainly fits the profile of a saint. He is very dear to our hearts as he saved the life of one of our sisters, who is no longer with us, but who had an extra ten years added to her life due to his intervention.
Pioneering heart surgeon LESTER SAUVAGE was born in Wapato, across the mountains from us, near Yakima
The family moved to Spokane
His first career goal was to become a Major League baseball player. But his mother insisted that he focus on his education instead. He entered medical school in an accelerated pre-med program at Gonzaga in 1943, in the middle of World War II, at a time when medical schools were scrambling for students when he was just 17.
In 1944 he left for medical school at St. Louis University in Missouri
He completed a one-year internship at the King County Hospital (now Harborview Medical Center ) in Seattle in 1949 and immediately began a residency in vascular surgery at the University of Washington Army Medical Service Graduate School at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington D.C.
At Walter Reed, Sauvage became involved in research to find better ways to repair blood vessels that had been damaged by rifle fire or other war-related injuries. He conducted a series of experiments involving the insertion of blood vessel grafts in the aorta in the chest of young pigs. The work led to his first major research paper, "The Healing and Fate of Arterial Grafts," published in 1955.
In 1956 he married a Seattle University Boston , where Dr. Sauvage began a second residency, in pediatric and cardiovascular surgery, at the Children’s Medical Center
In addition to a busy private practice (averaging more than 260 operations a year for 32 years), he also carried on important clinical research. With his colleagues at his initially small laboratory (now the Hope Heart Institute), he made major contributions to the development of coronary bypass surgery and artificial replacements for diseased arteries and valves.
By the 1970s, Dr. Sauvage was one of He was also known for his extraordinary attentiveness to patients. He visited them at all hours in the hospital and willingly provided personal services, from washing their hair to spoon-feeding them. On at least one occasion, he sent his assistants off to rest while he cleaned the operating room himself. Staff and patients called him "Saint Sauvage”.
Dr. Lester Sauvage died on June 5, 2015, at the age of 88.
His deep Christian faith remained an important part of his life. As a surgeon, he often spoke to his patients about spiritual issues, and took pride in ministering to their inner lives as much as to their physical problems. "People who are afflicted with these problems are brought into a close glimpse, if you will, with eternity. If I can give a little guidance to people to enlarge their horizon or what they see, then I think I've done something that's every bit as important as putting a stitch in some artery someplace or another”. Our Community has fond memories of his care for our Mother Francis of Rome.