Pamela Clauss

Who was Pamela Clauss?

Pamela Clauss was an Australian pioneering nurse, philanthropist and supporter of historical preservation and the arts.

Born as Pamela Heavey in Longueville, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney, to Alison Maud and John Aloysius Heavey, a New Zealand Navy veteran who had been decorated during World War I for bravery in the ANZAC landing at Gallipoli in 1915.

She graduated from Sacred Heart College in Kensington, Sydney and went on to attend nursing training at St. Vincent's Hospital, also in Sydney, in 1942. In 1956 following activities in Europe and England she returned to Australia and became a nursing sister in charge of St. Vincent's newly established cardio-thoracic surgical unit.

Three years later she went to the Mayo Clinic as part of an exchange-training program, and in 1965 she joined the open-heart surgery team of Dr. Roy H. Clauss and Dr. George Reed in NYC. She went on to pioneer cardiac bypass surgery techniques at the Mayo Clinic, at New York University and at the New York Medical College.

She married Dr. Clauss, a widower, in 1970, and remained in Manhattan for the rest of her career and married life until her death. They had no children, but she became stepmother to his three children.