Estate of Anna Mirowski, Deceased, Ginat W. Mirowski and Ariella Rosengard, Personal Representatives - Page 4




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          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.                                                               





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