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When Shannon Clarke, a 48-year-old, retired police officer, received a heart from Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute, he had no idea just how transformational it would be. 

When John Murray was losing function in his hands and arms, it became difficult to play his music. He turned to the team at Saint Luke's Marion Bloch Neuroscience Institute to fix the issue threatening his independent lifestyle.

Andrew Widman was merely hours old when doctors discovered he had a rare heart defect called transposition of the great arteries.

When Henry Myers needed a heart transplant, he trusted the team at Saint Luke's Mid America Heart Institute. While waiting for a new heart, one goal, in particular, made him persevere.

On the day after Andrew Widman returned home from Saint Luke’s Hospital of Kansas City with his new heart, his wife, Vicki, drove him to the DMV. There he ordered a personalized license plate that read simply “745.” It’s a number that’s particularly close to his heart.

What began as a middle-of-the-night trip to the bathroom turned into a nightmare—and then a miracle—for 83-year-old Chillicothe resident Shirley Eskew. After getting out of bed, Shirley slipped and fell. “I just hit the concrete hard,” she remembers. Things got blurry after that, but she did manage to call for help and get to the emergency room at Hedrick Medical Center.

Saint Luke's Mid America Heart Institute has successfully completed 800 heart transplants. This is our journey.

"It was frustrating, and I thought that was just the way life was going to be," Barry Blank said. Read his about journey with Parkinson's and about the procedure that changed his life.

When she needed a heart transplant, she choose Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute. A year later, Jenna’s feeling healthy and strong and advocating for improvements to medical devices for women.

One in three women will die from heart disease. Jenna fought to live.