As adults, we never know when something we say or do is going to influence a young person to excel or pursue a certain course. One of the nation's leading pediatric surgeons was such a young person.

Dr. Robert Jaquiss became interested in medicine after reading a book his high school physics teacher gave him. The book is entitled The Making of a Surgeon, by William A. Nolen (London, Butterworths, 1961).

"At that time in my life I found the story very captivating and it made me feel I wanted to be a surgeon."

That teacher, William Harl, never knew the influence he had on Jaquiss — and his three brothers, who also went on to make their mark in life. His brother Nigel is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist.

"I think [Mr. Harl] certainly viewed it as more than a job," says Jaquiss, "and I think he took a wonderful and tremendous interest in his students ... my brothers and I all owe him a lot."

Dr. Jaquiss came to Arkansas Children's Hospital after a stint at Children's Hospital in Milwaukee, Wis. He has practiced in Miami, Fla., and completed his residency in St. Louis, Mo.

Dr. Jaquiss has performed numerous operations on infants, but the surgery with Allison was a bit different. In infants, his procedure is usually the first one they've had; Allison had already had four — and it showed. Dr. Jaquiss explains, "There was a lot of scar tissue and structures because Allison's known anatomical normalities were not where they are normally — people who have what we call 'normally sited' hearts. Hers was unusually located."

But the operation was a success and Dr. Jaquiss is optimistic about the future of this type of valve replacement surgery.

"There is a very exciting development in the last few years with replacing that valve, by not removing it, but putting a new valve inside it; and that valve is delivered by a catheter that's passed up through one of the blood vessels in the groin."

He also says even more promising work is being done by Dr. Toshiharu Shinoka at Yale School of Medicine, who recently co-authored a paper on the use of polymer-based scaffolds in tissue-engineered heart valves.

"His procedure," says Jaquiss, "involves basically implanting the equivalent of a valve that is constructed in part from some inert biological material that eventually the body will absorb, but also in part from the equivalent of stem cells from the patient's own body."

Dr. Jaquiss says these types of developments provide hope for a possible end to multiple surgeries patients like Allison may face.