Before dedicating himself full time to ecclesiastical service, Russell M. Nelson was a world-renowned surgeon. He helped pioneer open heart surgery at a time when many believed that touching a human heart would cause it to stop beating. He was set apart as the 17th president and prophet of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in January 2018. Nelson had served as a member of the church’s Quorum of the Twelve Apostles since 1984.

Nelson was born and raised in Utah. He received a bachelor’s degree from the University of Utah in 1945 and a doctor of medicine degree here in 1947. He received a doctoral degree in 1954 from the University of Minnesota, where he was a surgical resident and member of the team that developed the heart-lung machine.

By 1955, Nelson had returned to his home state and became the first surgeon to perform open-heart surgery in Utah, using a heart-lung bypass machine he built with the help of his wife Dantzel W. Nelson, whom he met while a student at the U. Because of Russell Nelson, Utah became the third state in the country to have a successful open-heart surgery.

Russell Nelson worked as a surgeon at LDS Hospital, where he was chair of the Division of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery. He was a research professor of surgery and director of Thoracic Surgery Residency at the University of Utah’s School of Medicine for almost two decades, training generations of cardiac surgeons.

Nelson was also a pioneer in the field of global health. In 1980, he traveled to Shandong, China, where he trained surgeons to perform open-heart surgery. Today, it is estimated that more than 2,000 heart operations are done annually at Shandong University’s affiliated hospitals by surgeons, some of whom were trained by Nelson.

He authored or co-authored more than 100 research articles and chapters in medical textbooks. Nelson lectured at and visited medical schools throughout the U.S. He also served as a visiting professor of surgery in Mexico, Uruguay and Russia.

Nelson once said, “Education is the difference between wishing you could help other people and being able to help them.” He has dedicated his life and career to relieving the suffering of individuals of all religions and nationalities, offering hope and the potential for a better life to millions of people around the world.

Nelson served as president of the Society for Vascular Surgery, a director of the American Board of Thoracic Surgery, chairman of the Council on Cardiovascular Surgery for the American Heart Association, and president of the Utah State Medical Association.

Nelson is a member of numerous honorary scholastic societies, including Phi Beta Kappa and Alpha Omega Alpha, and is the recipient of awards including the Heart of Gold Award from the American Heart Association, the Golden Plate Award from the American Academy of Achievement and a Distinguished Alumnus Award from the University of Utah.

In 2018, a Presidential Endowed Chair in Cardiothoracic Surgery was created at the University of Utah in honor of Russell Nelson and Dantzel W. Nelson. In 2009, Nelson donated manuscripts, publications, films of surgical procedures, operative records and other items related to his career as a cardiac surgeon to the J. Willard Marriott Library’s special collections, establishing the Russell Marion Nelson Collection.

Russell Nelson and Dantzel W. Nelson, who passed away in 2005, are the parents of 10 children. He married Wendy L. Watson in 2006.