Richard Rowland Lower (August 15, 1929 – May 17, 2008) was an American pioneer of cardiac surgery, particularly in the field of heart transplantation.
[1] Lower was born in Detroit, attended Amherst College, and received his medical degree from Cornell University in 1955.
Lower left Stanford to head the cardiac program at the Medical College of Virginia, and competed with Shumway, Adrian Kantrowitz, and Christiaan Barnard to conduct the first successful human heart transplant.
[3] While a solution was being found to those questions, Barnard, making use of Shumway and Lower's research, conducted the first successful (i.e. not resulting in immediate death) human heart transplantation, in South Africa on December 3, 1967.
[2] Lower retired in 1989 to Montana, where he raised cattle,[2] though he also volunteered at a Richmond, Virginia medical practice benefitting the poor.