University of Minnesota

20th century began, the university expanded its academic offerings. In 1908, the university inaugurated the Program of Mortuary Science, becoming the first state university in the United States to do so. The School of Nursing was established in 1909, the first continuous nursing school on a university campus in the United States. The nursing school later opened its doors to male students in 1949.
20th-century breakthroughs at the University of Minnesota positioned it as a leader in medical innovation. In 1954, C. Walton Lillehei and F. John Lewis performed the world's first successful open-heart surgery using cross-circulation. 1955 saw Richard DeWall and Lillehei develop the bubble oxygenator, setting the stage for modern heart-lung machines. This was followed by Lillehei's performance of the first artificial heart valve implant in a human in 1958, and in the same year, Earl Bakken, co-founder of Medtronic, Inc., developed the first portable pacemaker, introduced into practice by Lillehei.
The latter part of …