Michael Drummond seemed to be adjusting smoothly to his new artificial heart. Within days after a Jarvik-7 pump was implanted in his chest late in August, the 25-year-old Phoenix assistant grocery manager was eating solid food, walking with help and doing leg and arm exercises. Drummond's steady progress seemed to augur well for the next phase of his treatment: a second operation, to remove the mechanical device, which had been implanted only as a stopgap measure, and to replace it with a human donor heart.
Last week, as Cardiac Surgeon Jack Copeland was examining his patient in the sixth-floor intensive care...