Bernard Lown

Bernard Lown ( born June 7, 1921 in Utena, Lithuania) is an American cardiologist and activist he co-founded International Association of Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War ( IPPNW ), for which he shared with his Russian counterpart Yevgeny Tschasow 1985 Nobel Peace prize took. As a cardiologist, he is first described and the namesake of the Lown -Ganong -Levine syndrome, developer of the decades around the world related Lown classification of ventricular extrasystoles, inventor of the electric shock treatment (defibrillation and cardioversion ) for cardiac arrhythmias and founder of the Lown Cardiovascular Center at Harvard Medical School of Harvard University in Cambridge (Massachusetts ).

Childhood, youth and education

Lown was born on June 7, 1921 in Lithuania, the son of a shoemaker. 1935 emigrated to the Jewish family to Maine in the USA, where Lowns Uncle since the 1920s ran a shoe factory. Bernard studied medicine at the University of Maine and the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Johns Hopkins University. He left the latter in 1945 as a medical doctor (MD). During his studies he became involved in groups that called for increased admission colored, female and Jewish medical students and were regarded as " left-wing ". Due to a disregard of the segregated use " colored " and " white " blood products he was temporarily suspended from academic instruction.

Training

After graduation, Lown worked for five years initially in various clinics, and then to devote himself in Boston cardiology research from 1950 to 1953 at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital.

As a military doctor with the rank of Captain Lown leaned against a planned Korea use from the time prescribed by law to answer the question whether he had one of those days 400 classified as subversive organizations consulted. Instead, he argued for the abolition of discriminatory laws, which resulted in the marked by anti-communist McCarthy era to the degradation and disciplinary transfer to a military hospital in Tacoma (Washington). There he spent the year 1954 so that, in the morning to sweep the hospital corridors and in the afternoon to hold office hours. About this time later, he said: "You ruined my life for a year and delayed my career by a decade, but she made me a better doctor. "

This was followed by the Peter Bent Brigham assistantships at the Hospital ( 1955-1956 ) and Harvard Medical School ( 1955-1958 ).

Career as a physician and scientist

At the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital ( later Brigham and Women's Hospital ) was Lown 1956-1970 Director of the Samuel A. Levine Cardiovascular Research Laboratory, 1965-1974 Director of the Samuel A. Levine Coronary Care Unit and Senior Physician since 1984. He taught at the Harvard School of Public Health from 1961 to 1967 as an Assistant Professor of Medicine, 1967 to 1974 as an Associate Professor of Cardiology and from 1974 as Professor of Cardiology. 1991 saw the retirement.

Lown described in 1952 for the first time one of the Präexzitations syndromes, which has since been called Lown -Ganong -Levine syndrome, and coined the term sick sinus syndrome 1962 ( sick sinus syndrome ). He introduced the lidocaine therapy for ventricular extrasystoles and developed in 1971 Lown classification of ventricular extrasystoles.

Electric shock treatment of atrial fibrillation ( cardioversion ) has been developed by Lown and his colleagues beginning of the 1960s and first published in 1962. It has been controversial at first in professional circles, but has spread worldwide and has been and will continue to be applied in hundreds of thousands. The concept of coronary care units, the continuous monitoring of the heart rhythm ( " ECG Monitoring" ) in coronary patients, has been proposed by Lown and first realized.

Lown is the author or co-author of four books and more than 425 publications in scientific journals. He has been honored with more than 20 promotions and titles of U.S. and international universities and academies.

Political Activities

In the years 1974-1975 Lown chaired the US-China Friendship Association Physicians.

IPPNW

As a result, several joint research projects Lown had good contacts with the Russian cardiologist Yevgeny Tschasow, which in 1979 he submitted a proposal for an international association of physicians for peace.

In 1980 they founded the organization International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War ( IPPNW ). At first it was a few doctors who met in the living room of Lowns. They planned the participation of colleagues from the USA, the Soviet Union and Japan. 1985, when the Association was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, 200,000 members in 60 countries have already registered.

The U.S. media response to the awarding of the Nobel Prize in 1985 was controversial. In a later interview in 2005, Lown recalled his reluctance to turn over the papers at the award ceremony of the Nobel Prize or to give interviews. Some media have commented very negatively and accused inter alia Tschasow of murder. Even during the journey to Norway Lown was worried because the Nobel committee, according to a radio message the award sought to expose. On arrival in Norway were Lown, taken his mother and wife of the police in reception and had to wait. Since the police did not speak English and the Lowns no Norwegian, an explanation was not possible. Lown already thought that materialize the message and they will return. After an hour the Nobel committee appeared with flowers and greeted them warmly. As it turned out, the Lowns had arrived earlier than expected, as they had landed in a private jet a patient one hour before the scheduled airliner. This hour he did not want to relive, Lown reported later.

Lown was also disappointed that no official representative of the United States was present at the award ceremony. Later he wrote the two-time Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling, " Lown, do not be upset. They did not come for my Nobel either. " ( " Do not be disappointed, Lown. Among my Nobel, they are also not come. " Quoted in )

On 10 December 1985, the award was presented.

The prize was Lown and Tschasow in Oslo for the organization contrary. Lown was from 1980 to 1982 and President from 1982 to 1993 Co - President of IPPNW.

SATELLIFE

In an initiative Lowns who intended to create a symbolic counterweight to the global military defense strategies, including the establishment of SATELLIFE goes back. SATELLIFE is a US-based Boston -profit organization that enable healthcare professionals worldwide cost access to the Internet and thus promote collegial contact and access to relevant information wants. Initially, the main activity was to build a private satellite of the first e-mail networks in Africa. Today, The Global Health Information Network to concentrate on its more than 10,000 members mainly to train in Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nepal, Uganda and Zimbabwe and equipped with hardware and software to provide them at any time with information and contacts to specialists can.

Criticism of the health care

Since the 1980s, Lown increasingly concerned with the unfavorable opinion of his increasing commercialization of the American health care system and is committed to combating the accounting policy with DRGs and DRG. He advertises for a more social medicine and a health care system that is to serve the patient and not technology and profit in the first place. In this context, he founded the Association Ad Hoc Committee to Defend Health Care and has published many articles and letters in journals that are directed against the use of too much technology and too little " medical art". Published in 1996, the now- retired 75 -year-old Lown the book " The Lost Art of Healing ," in which he explains in detail laid out his vision of healing arts and criticized the loss of this art in today's medicine. The book has been translated into many languages ​​, including released in 2004, the second German -language edition entitled "The Lost Art of Healing. Instructions to rethink. ". A review in the German Medical Journal describes the work as " extraordinarily exciting and instructive " and recommends it to have to give each student at the beginning of medical studies and discuss at the end of the study again, "that is not lost, what medical action ultimately makes up ".

Private

Bernard Lown is married to Charlotte Louise Lown since 1946 and has three children.