Russell M. Nelson
Russell Marion Nelson Sr. (born September 9, 1924) is an American religious leader and retired surgeon who is the 17th and current president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church).[4] Nelson was a member of the LDS Church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles for nearly 34 years, and was the quorum president from 2015 to 2018. As church president, Nelson is recognized by the church as a prophet, seer, and revelator.[5]
"Russell Nelson" redirects here. For other people named Russell Nelson, see Russell Nelson (disambiguation).Russell M. Nelson
Became President of the Church
Became President of the Church
Spencer W. Kimball
Death of LeGrand Richards[3]
Russell Marion Nelson
September 9, 1924
Salt Lake City, Utah, U.S.
10 (2 deceased)
A native of Salt Lake City, Utah, Nelson attended the University of Utah for his undergraduate and medical school education. He earned a bachelor of arts in basic biological sciences with high honors in 1945, and a doctor of medicine degree in 1947, at age 22.[6] He then did his medical residency and earned a Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota, where he was a member of the research team developing the heart-lung machine that in 1951 supported the first human open-heart surgery using cardiopulmonary bypass. After further surgical training and a two-year service in the U.S. Army Medical Corps during the Korean War, Nelson returned to Salt Lake City and accepted a professorship at the University of Utah School of Medicine. He spent the next 29 years working in the field of cardiothoracic surgery. Nelson became a noted heart surgeon and served as president of the Society for Vascular Surgery and the Utah Medical Association.[7]
Nelson served in a variety of lay LDS Church leadership positions during his surgical career, beginning locally in Salt Lake City and then as the LDS Church's Sunday School General President from 1971 to 1979.[8] In 1984, Nelson and the American jurist Dallin H. Oaks were selected to fill two vacancies in the LDS Church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. LDS apostles serve full-time for life, and so Nelson retired from all of his prior professional positions.
Early life and education[edit]
Nelson was born on September 9, 1924, in Salt Lake City, Utah, to Floss Edna (née Anderson; 1893–1983) and Marion Clavar Nelson (1897–1990).[9][10] He had two sisters, Marjory E. (1920–2016) and Enid (1926–2019), and a brother, Robert H. (1931–2014). Nelson's father was a reporter for the Deseret News and later became general manager of Gillham Advertising, Utah's earliest advertising agency.[11][12] His parents were not active in the Latter-day Saint faith while he was a youth, but they did send him to Sunday School,[13] and he was baptized a member of the LDS Church at age 16.[14]
Nelson studied at LDS Business College in his mid-teens (concurrently with high school enrollment) and worked as an assistant secretary at a bank.[15] He graduated from high school at age 16 and enrolled at the University of Utah,[16][17] where he was a member of the Beta Epsilon chapter of Sigma Chi and Owl and Key. He graduated in 1945 with a Bachelor of Arts and Phi Beta Kappa membership. He then attended the University of Utah School of Medicine, graduating with a Doctor of Medicine degree in 1947 ranked first in his class.[16] Nelson began his first year of medical school while still an undergraduate, and he completed the four-year M.D. program in only three years.[4][18]
After medical school, Nelson went to the University of Minnesota for his medical residency. While at Minnesota, he was a member of surgeon Clarence Dennis's pioneering research team developing the heart-lung machine that in April 1951 supported the first human open-heart surgery using cardiopulmonary bypass. Nelson received a Ph.D. from Minnesota in 1954 for his research contributions.[19][20][21]
Medical career[edit]
Nelson served a two-year term of duty in the U.S. Army Medical Corps during the Korean War, and was stationed at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. While on duty, he was assigned to a research group formed by the commandant of the graduate school at Walter Reed, Col. William S. Stone and led by Fiorindo A. Simeone, a professor of surgery at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland who had been a clinical investigator in the Mediterranean Theater during World War II. This team was focused on ways to improve the treatment of the wounded, and was sent to all five MASH units active in Korea along with two major evacuation hospitals, several field station hospitals, a prisoner of war camp and larger evacuation hospitals in Japan, Hawaii, and the mainland United States in order to implement such improvements. At one point, the team came close enough to the front that they received fire from enemy artillery positions, which missed them. After 20 months in service, he left active duty at the rank of captain.[22] Following his military service, he did a year of work and surgical training at Massachusetts General Hospital.[23]
In 1955, Nelson returned to Salt Lake City and accepted a faculty position at the University of Utah School of Medicine. There he built his own heart-lung bypass machine and employed it to support the first open-heart surgery in the United States west of the Mississippi River.[24][25] That operation was performed at the Salt Lake General Hospital (SLGH, now University of Utah Hospital) on an adult with an atrial septal defect.[21] Nelson was the third surgeon in the United States to perform an open-heart operation successfully. Nelson was also the director of the University of Utah thoracic surgery residency program.[26]
In March 1956, he performed the first successful pediatric cardiac operation at the SLGH, a total repair of tetralogy of Fallot in a four-year-old girl.[25] He was at the forefront of surgeons focusing attention on coronary artery disease,[27] and contributed to the advance of valvular surgery as well. In 1960, he performed one of the first-ever repairs of tricuspid valve regurgitation.[23] His patient was a Latter-day Saint stake patriarch.[28] He also provided the first surgical intervention for tricuspid regurgitation, a disorder that allows blood to flow backward into the right upper heart chamber.[25] In an indication of his surgical skill, a 1968 case series of his aortic valve replacements demonstrated an exceptionally low peri-operative mortality.[29] Later, he performed the same operation on future LDS Church president Spencer W. Kimball, replacing his damaged aortic valve.[30] In 1985, Nelson along with his colleague, Conrad B. Jenson, performed a quadruple bypass surgery on the Chinese opera performer Fang Rongxiang (1925–1989).[24]
Nelson first operated out of the University of Utah's medical school. He later had a practice at the Salt Lake Clinic with admission privileges at LDS Hospital. In 1964, he set up his own private practice with him as the lead and Conrad Jenson as an associate. In 1966, Nelson became head of the thoracic residency program that combined resources from the University of Utah Medical School, LDS Hospital, Primary Children's Hospital and the VA Hospital in Salt Lake City.[31]
In 1965, the University of Chicago offered Nelson the position as head of their department of thoracic surgery. Dallin H. Oaks, then a law professor at Chicago and a fellow Latter-day Saint, actively worked to recruit Nelson. However, after consulting with David O. McKay, Nelson turned down the offer.[32]
Nelson became involved with the administrative aspects of medicine and was elected president of the Utah State Medical Association.[4] He was chair of the Division of Thoracic Surgery at LDS Hospital.[33]
In 1981, Nelson held appointments as a visiting professor of surgery at the National Institute of Cardiology in Mexico City and the Catholic University in Santiago, Chile. In May 1982 he was a visiting professor at the Hospital de Clinicas in Montevideo, Uruguay.[34]
Nelson was honored nationally by being elected president of the Society for Vascular Surgery for the year 1975.[35] He was also a director of the American Board of Thoracic Surgery.[33] Nelson traveled extensively as a medical doctor and addressed conferences in many parts of Latin America and Africa, as well as in India and China.[36] He performed a total of nearly 7,000 operations before his call to be an apostle.[25]
In 2015, the University of Utah, along with the American College of Cardiology, created the Russell M. Nelson MD, PhD Visiting Professorship in Cardiothoracic Surgery.[37]
Marriages and children[edit]
While a student at the University of Utah, Nelson met and began dating fellow Utah student Dantzel White (1926–2005). They dated for three years, then married on August 31, 1945, in the Salt Lake Temple.[115] Together they had ten children: nine daughters—Marsha, Wendy (1951–2019),[116] Gloria, Brenda, Sylvia, Emily (1958–1995),[117] Laurie, Rosalie, and Marjorie—and a son, Russell Jr. (b. 1972).[118] Dantzel White was a native of Perry, Utah, and first met Nelson when they were the co-leads in a musical produced at the University of Utah. During the 1950s, Dantzel was a member of the Tabernacle Choir.[119]
Dantzel Nelson died unexpectedly at their home in Salt Lake City on February 12, 2005, at age 78.[115] The following year, Nelson married Wendy L. Watson (b. 1950) in the Salt Lake Temple.[120] Watson, originally from Raymond, Alberta, was a professor of marriage and family therapy at BYU prior to her retirement in 2006. Her marriage to Nelson is her first.[121]
In June 2018, the University of Utah endowed a chair in cardiothoracic surgery named after Nelson and his first wife, Dantzel.[131]