John H. Gibbon Jr, and the 60th Anniversary of the first successful heart-lung machine

摘要

ON OCTOBER 3, 1931, a 53-year-old woman status post cholecystectomy at the Massachusetts General Hospital developed sharp pleuritic chest pain, tachycardia, and profound dyspnea. Edward W. Churchill, a respected thoracic surgeon and prolific researcher, promptly made the diagnosis of pulmonary embolism. At that time, pulmonary embolectomy or Trendelemburg's procedure had never been performed in the United States and only a very few of these procedures had been successfully reported in Europe. Therefore, Churchill decided to transfer the patient to the operating room and proceed with a pulmonary embolectomy only as a very last resort. John H. Gibbon Jr, a research fellow in surgery, was assigned to monitor the case overnight and record the patient's blood pressure, pulse rate, and respiratory rate every 15 minutes (Fig 1).