In 1967, Drs. William Stoney, George Burrus, and William Alford launched the Cardiac Surgery Program at St. Thomas Hospital in Nashville, Tennessee. They performed the first open-heart procedure at the hospital when they replaced Mr. Billy Davis' mitral heart valve. In 1969, members of this same team performed the first coronary artery bypass grafting in Tennessee. These physicians founded Cardiovascular Surgery Associates, P.C. (CSA) in 1974. Their goal: to provide high quality, state-of-the-art adult heart and lung surgery, exclusively at St. Thomas Hospital.