Dec. 7, 2020

The man credited with helping bring cardiovascular surgery to South Dakota has died.

Dr. James Reynolds died Nov. 12 at age 77.

A visionary in the advancement of medicine, the South Dakota native helped build multiple cardiovascular programs here, from beginning in the basement of what is now Sanford USD Medical Center to the founding of North Central Heart and the establishment of Avera Heart Hospital.

“He was a very, very talented surgeon,” said Jon Soderholm, Reynolds’ colleague and the first CEO of Avera Heart Hospital.

The two would often visit communities across South Dakota, and inevitably “someone would come up and say: ‘You saved my dad. You saved my grandpa. You saved my grandchild.’ And it happened every single time. Sometimes multiple times. Very few people have given that many people a second chance to live and love.”

Reynolds was born at Avera McKennan Hospital and grew up in Sioux Falls. He graduated from Augustana University and spent two years in what was then a two-year medical school program at USD.

For his final two years of medical school, he was accepted to Johns Hopkins University. As an intern there in 1969, he witnessed the university’s first heart bypass surgery.

“It was an exciting time, and physicians are drawn to excitement,” Reynolds said in a 2011 interview. “At that point, clearly cardiac surgery was innovative and many new things were being developed.”

His acceptance to Johns Hopkins – where he was invited to remain on the faculty but declined in order to return to South Dakota – was significant, said longtime colleague Dr. Lewis Ofstein.

“It was probably the premier medical school in the United States,” Ofstein said. “But he elected to come back to Sioux Falls. He had foresight based not on wanting to do something for himself or our group but for the people of South Dakota to bring them the quality of medical care they deserved.”

Reynolds began his South Dakota medical career in 1975, along with a like-minded surgeon who had relocated from Michigan, Dr. Robert Willix Jr. Willix died earlier this year in Florida.

The two began in the basement of then-Sioux Valley Hospital, where part of the nursing school space was converted into a research laboratory and then performed heart surgery on dogs.

Together, they performed the first human bypass surgery in South Dakota in 1978.

In 1981, Reynolds helped form North Central Heart, a group of independent physicians.

“Jim, being the gentleman that he was, made it happen,” Soderholm said. “There are leaders that are brash and a lot of fanfare, but Jim was very quiet, very thoughtful and never raised his voice. Never the one to talk first but was always ready to try something new, be it in the surgical suite or in the administrative suite.”

In surgery, Reynolds shined, Ofstein said.

“He was absolutely marvelous in the operating room,” he said. “His personality, his spirit, his demeanor, his calm – based in no small measure on his knowledge base and his confidence in his ability – I’ve never met anyone quite up to his abilities. He was that good. At the same time, he never talked about being that good.”

How did he do it? In the 2011 interview, he was characteristically humble.

“The easy answer is (to) thank Mother for giving me the genes to handle it that way, but … we all handle stress differently,” he said. “And fortunately I have the ability, when the going was getting tough, I found I was most efficient in a very calm manner. I had seen the other side of cardiac surgery, reaction to stress, and I was never impressed that that helped anything. When you need to concentrate the most, you need to do it as calmly as possible.”

In 2001, Reynolds was a significant influence in the establishment of Avera Heart Hospital of South Dakota.

Soderholm remembers the hospital’s grand opening. The cardiologists had been encouraged to invite patients to see the new hospital, stand at the door and greet them. It was a tough sell with some surgeons. Not Reynolds.

“These people came through to see their surgeon, and, like South Dakota, they brought a gift to the open house,” Soderholm said. “Jim got cake, cookies, pies; we had to get a table for him to pile them on.”

When he was inducted into the South Dakota Hall of Fame in 2006, Reynolds’ nomination read in part:

“In Dr. James R. Reynolds, South Dakota has produced the consummate surgeon and most gracious gentleman. His tireless contributions to our state and the surrounding region have vastly expanded and improved the quality of health care, especially in the area of cardiovascular medicine and surgery.”

When Reynolds retired in 2008, “there wasn’t a dry eye in the house among the nurses because they knew what they were losing,” Oftsein said. “He knew everyone who was a mover and a shaker and the principals in South Dakota. Jim knew everybody well, from the governor to the guys who cleaned the floors at the Heart Hospital. He was a friend to all these people.”

Reynolds served on numerous boards throughout his career and was one of very few people to have ever served on the boards of both Avera Health and Sioux Valley Hospital. He is a past president of the American College of Surgeons, South Dakota State Medical Association and North Central Heart Institute, and continued to serve on the South Dakota Health Care Commission for many years.

Reynolds is survived by his wife and high school sweetheart, Debby, five children and 12 grandchildren. Click here to view his complete obituary.

His memorial service was held in November.  To view a tribute to his life, click below.