Podcast 'Cardiac Cowboys' tells captivating story of Minnesota's open-heart surgery pioneers

Before the 1950s, heart surgery was widely regarded as a guaranteed instant death for a patient. It just wasn’t done, no matter how badly it was needed. So it took a lot of guts for the pioneering doctors to take on the first lifesaving heart surgeries for pacemakers and heart-lung machines. A screenwriter is telling the winding story of the one of the first open heart surgeries, which took place in Minnesota, and all of the drama, scandal and millions of lives saved that went along with it. That screenwriter’s name is Jamie Napoli, and he created the new six-episode documentary podcast called “Cardiac Cowboys.” Napoli joined Minnesota Now host Nina Moini to talk about the podcast.