From heart patient to heart pioneer
By Heather Schnese S’12
August 21, 2026 | 12:15 p.m.
When Jacob Dutcher ’96 was five years old, he underwent open-heart surgery. Doctors went in to repair a life-threatening heart defect but found multiple abnormalities, including a large hole in the upper two chambers of the heart and mispositioned pulmonary veins. They were able to correct all the defects, Dutcher survived the surgery, and a lifelong connection to the human heart began.
Today, he’s working to save other hearts, helping pioneer technologies that allow some patients to avoid open-heart surgery altogether. As an interventional cardiologist and director of the Structural Heart Program at CentraCare Heart and Vascular Center in St. Cloud, Minnesota, Dutcher has helped lead procedures that have drawn international attention. He was the first physician in the world to use live 4D holographic imaging during a heart procedure, making it possible to complete certain interventions with greater precision and, for some patients, without contrast dye. More recently, he helped perform the first minimally invasive removal of a heart tumor using a novel catheter guided by the same technology.
For Dutcher, though, innovation has always been about something much simpler: helping people. “I realized as I got older how serious a heart condition I had and if it weren’t for the surgery being successful, I wouldn’t be here,” he says. “I felt like I’d been given a second chance at life, and I really wanted to find God’s purpose in giving back.”
That realization took root long before medical school. Growing up in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, before moving to Maple Grove, Dutcher excelled academically. By the middle of his junior year of high school, he had completed nearly every course available to him. Rather than spend his senior year taking electives, he decided to take advantage of Minnesota’s Post Secondary Enrollment Options program. At the time, Bethel was one of the few schools in the area offering PSEO.
“I thought I’d give Bethel a try,” he says. “If I liked it, I’d stay.” He ended up staying all four years, coming to love the campus and the smaller class sizes.
“I liked that when you were on campus, you felt like you were in the middle of nowhere—so much natural beauty, and yet you’re actually really close to the city,” he says. “Also, I was a man of faith and appreciated the Christian community.”
He built lasting friendships through Bible studies and campus activities. “Broomball was my favorite thing—such great memories with great friends,” he says.
Already on the pre-med path, Dutcher majored in biology with a chemistry minor. He built close relationships with other students and professors who encouraged him academically and personally, especially the late biology professor Weldon Jones, whom he credits as an important mentor who boosted his confidence. Dutcher took numerous classes with Jones and also served as his TA in many courses.
— Jacob Dutcher ’96
“I felt like if God is leading me to do something—if He really wanted me to do it—He would open doors. But I had to put forth the effort, too,” Dutcher says. “So, that’s what I did. I worked really hard and figured we’ll see what happens and if the door opens. I live by the motto, ‘do your best and let God do the rest.’”
God did open doors, but not the ones he originally thought. Dutcher had planned to become a pediatric heart surgeon, hoping to perform the same type of surgery that had saved his own life. But during medical school, another path emerged.
His father, Bob Dutcher, a biomedical engineer, had spent his career developing cardiovascular technologies. He encouraged his son to consider the rapidly growing field of interventional cardiology, where physicians repair hearts using minimally invasive catheter-based procedures instead of opening the chest. “He wanted me to keep an open mind and said that interventional cardiology was the wave of the future,” Dutcher says. “So I started looking into that more, and I found that I enjoyed that aspect of medicine.” He then changed his career plans from a surgical track to internal medicine, and ultimately interventional cardiology.
After earning his medical degree from the University of Minnesota, completing his residency at Mayo Clinic and his cardiology training at William Beaumont in Detroit, Dutcher joined CentraCare in 2007, where he has served patients for nearly two decades.
Along the way, God opened another door. Recognizing that physicians were performing increasingly sophisticated heart procedures with imaging technology that had not kept pace, Dutcher began collaborating with EchoPixel, a healthcare technology company specializing in 3D medical imaging. In 2016 they developed holographic imaging for structural heart interventions. His natural ability to visualize three-dimensional space made him an ideal partner in advancing the technology. “One of my God-given gifts is understanding 3D imaging and how it can be leveraged to better appreciate the human anatomy and the manipulation of medical instruments in 3D space. These skills come naturally to me,” says Dutcher. “So partnering with a company attempting to develop holographic 3D and 4D medical imaging really played into my strengths. It was a match made in heaven.”
Outside the hospital, Dutcher enjoys spending time with his wife, Sarah, a watercolor artist, and their four children. His oldest is a junior at Bethel.
In 2021, that work led to a world first when Dutcher used a live 4D hologram to guide a structural heart procedure. The breakthrough attracted attention from media outlets around the world and opened new possibilities for treating patients with greater precision. The technology continues to evolve quickly, but Dutcher’s purpose remains the same.
"I went into medicine because I wanted to use the gifts God had given me to help people—to help people take care of people," he says. “I’m doing that by healing patients and trying to push the field of interventional cardiology through these novel imaging modalities.”
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