- 4 - when he was not at the hospital. Dr. Mirowski was very upset by Dr. Heller’s death. He determined to develop an implantable defibrillator device in order to prevent people, like Dr. Heller, who suffered from ventricular fibrillation from dying because they were not in a hospital near a defibrillator when they suffered an episode of that condition or from having to stay continuously in a hospital in order to be near a defibrillator in the event of such an episode. In 1968, in order to obtain funding to develop an im- plantable defibrillator device, Dr. Mirowski and Ms. Mirowski emigrated to the United States. Initially, Dr. Mirowski was ostracized in the medical community for his efforts to develop such a device. He nonetheless persevered. Over a ten-year period, Dr. Mirowski and a team of scientists developed an electronic device known as the automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillator (ICD) to monitor and correct abnormal heart rhythms. In 1980, the ICD was successfully implanted for the first time in a human.4 Dr. Mirowski, who eventually became chief of cardiology at Sinai Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland (Baltimore), and a profes- 4At the time of the trial in this case, more than 1.2 mil- lion patients worldwide had received ICDs. The ICD has been referred to as the greatest contribution to cardiology in the last century.Page: Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 NextLast modified: March 27, 2008