A Legacy of Hope: Jon Hochstein’s Journey to Cardiac Surgery

Written by Ziyan Liu, Student Engagement Intern 2025

Content warning: this blog post contains pictures of human hearts that some readers may find disturbing. 

What gets you out of bed every morning?

A simple question, yet one that exists omnipresently in my mind. For me, the answer had long been almost obvious: I feel an almost instinctual need to live life fully, to live for both the sake of myself and for my donor. But what does that mean?

Ironically, I found my sense of purpose in the hospital. It seems hard to believe that the same place that had harbored such bad memories in my childhood is where I want to spend the rest of my life. 

But, it was learning the science behind why my ventricular assist device was placed on my atrium and not my ventricles, a surgical intervention that did not exist merely years ago, that made me interested in science. It was when I held my own heart in my hands post-transplant—its texture incomparable to anything else. I could see everything: the missing heart wall that had caused my heart failure, the different chambers, the enlarged pulmonary artery… that blew my mind. 

And it was knowing that I wouldn’t have been alive if it weren’t for my donor and the hard work of the doctors, nurses, and technicians that made me realize where I would find the most purpose: giving back to the medical community. 

Ziyan Liu holding her transplanted heart, Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, 2017

Yet as sure as I was about my aspirations, it was impossible to get rid of the voice in the back of my mind telling me that I couldn’t do it. That I wasn’t good enough, wasn’t strong enough, that I could never handle the emotional weight of such a career. The endless hospital hallways and towering physicians had always made me feel so small. These fears persisted through my teenage years until one day, while chatting with a cardiac surgeon whom I was shadowing at Boston Children’s Hospital, he told me about Dr. Jon Hochstein. 

“Your story is remarkably similar to Jon’s,” he smiled. “I think you’ll find value in chatting with him.”

Upon my first Google search, I quickly found that we were both pediatric heart transplant patients. That in itself was already so rare. But unlike other recipients I’ve met, Jon’s story was especially striking in that his career path—from his alma mater, Johns Hopkins University, to his medical school, Harvard Medical School, to his medical specialty, cardiothoracic surgery—was exactly where I wanted to be in life, if I dared hope. 

My hands shook as I sent my first email introducing myself. 

Every few minutes, I would check my notifications, telepathically urging him to respond, and when he finally did, I was ecstatic. 

Meeting Jon for the first time was like staring into a mirror where an older version of yourself stares back at you. He had just gotten out of surgery and was still in scrubs, pacing the halls of the Stanford hospital and nodding enthusiastically while I explained over FaceTime how I stumbled upon him. 

He looked exhausted, yet his eyes held a flame that could not be extinguished, which was made all the more apparent when he started speaking about his transplant journey.

The more we spoke, the more I began to understand myself. 

Jon told me innumerable stories about the interesting cases he has attended to and moments that have inspired him. He patiently explained his career journey and offered me valuable advice as an aspiring medical student. 

The first time he referred to me and him as “people like us,” I couldn’t believe my ears. What were the odds? All this time, I thought that I was all alone in my journey. Our stories, so unique yet so amazingly similar, warmed my heart. And though our reasons for why we wanted to go into medicine were different, there was the same underlying desire to give back to our community, which gave me immeasurable hope. 

“Is it hard?” I voiced my biggest fear, “Always being in the hospital, working such long hours.”

He nodded carefully. 

“I would say any career is hard, especially careers in healthcare,” he said. “It’s not easy getting woken up at 3 a.m. after being on call for 24-hours straight to scrub in on a case, missing important events and holidays as a result. But what’s different is finding the patient demographic that you really care about, that really inspires you. When I remember what I’m doing this for, that I’m training to save babies’ lives in the future, it becomes not-so hard.”

I blinked back tears as I tried to picture myself waking up at 3 a.m. to perform a heart transplant to save a baby’s life. It was easy to picture myself as the surgeon, but it was easier still to see myself as the baby on the operating table. There is nothing I wouldn’t do to save that baby.

“Do you think this was the right choice for you?”

“Absolutely.”

Jon Hochstein during his first year of cardiac surgery residency, Stanford University Medical Center, 2024

When you choose to become a donor, you don’t just save someone's life. You create legacies that will touch generations to come. A single act of generosity created not only mine and Jon’s second chance at life, but the possibility that, one day, another patient’s life will be saved at our hands. Regardless of where life takes you, whether you’re a donor or a recipient, walk the path illuminated by the love of the transplant community proudly.  

 The potential of the gift of life can never be understated.