Posted in bio ethics, Histroy of medicine, Medcal research, Medical education, Medical ethics, medical quotes, tagged ethics in medical research, ethics in medicine, greatest award in medicine, medical quote, nobel prize in medicine, publish or perish, what is success in scientific world on November 26, 2021|
What is the true success in a scientific career?
It is not the number of publications in journals or getting those big awards or memberships in prestigious scientific societies. True success is “something else,” says the Nobel Medical Laureate Dr Willam Kaelin
Great thoughts. Just wondering, what are those elements beyond our controls he was alluding to?
Video courtesy and thanks : http://www.nobel.org
Posted in history of cardiology, tagged andreas gruentzig, nobel prize for cardiac catheterisation, nobel prize in medicine, pci, ptca on January 5, 2012| Leave a Comment »
Medical science has grown ( and growing ) in an astonishing pace. Many of the inventions which were considered as major break throughs have fallen on the wayside over the years . Of course , quite a few withstood the test of time .
One of the great inventions of last century is per-cutaneous interventions inside the human coronary artery .
The concept was first conceived and executed by Andreas Gruentzig of Germany in year 1977. Now , at-least a million PCIs are done every year to tackle CAD with greatly improved knowledge base, evidence , hardware, techniques and expertise .
PTCA is an invention worth a Nobel prize . . .well , that’s what we cardiologists feel. The Nobel committee seems to think otherwise .
What could be the reasons ?
* Another possible reason is , the Nobel medical committee is probably well aware of the perennial controversy about role of Medicine vs Surgery vs PCI on the outcome CAD and the superiority of one over the other !
Final message
Whatever be the reasoning , Nobel committee has to rethink . Cardiologists all over the world would definitely agree if one man who have made a huge difference in their patient’s life , it must be Gruentzig .
It is well-known Nobel prize is given for path breaking research that break new grounds like decoding cosmic mysteries , expansion of universe , cell signalling , molecular mimicry and the stuff like that .
Still , Gruentzig definitely deserves a Nobel solely for the novelty in his procedure and in the process it helped avoid surgery in vast majority of heart patients.
Reference
http://www.nobelprizemedicine.org/
http://circ.ahajournals.org/content/93/9/1621.full
Video
http://www.angioplasty.org/video/aghero.ram
Posted in Cardiology -Interventional -PCI, history of cardiology, tagged accidental inventions in medicine, cag, cardiac cathetrisation, coroanry angiogram, errors as science, forsmann cournand richards, great inventions, great medcial discoveries, henry ford detriot, nobel prize in medicine, scientiifc errors, Sones mason, what is coroanry angiogram on November 21, 2010| 1 Comment »
In any field , errors and mistakes transform into experience in retrospect. (Of course only if we realize our mistakes !) . Many would argue prevention of such errors is the only way to move forward in science , but ,the opposite could also be true.
In Medicine ,
That’s what happened on 1958 , to be precise on October 3oth , 1958 in a lonely laboratory of Henry Ford hospital/Cleveland clinic *
*A correction -This invention actually happened in Cleveland. ( Sones learnt all his techniques in Henry ford)
When Sones along with his assistant were trying to do an Aortogram in a patient with RHD, the entire dye meant for aorta went straight into the right coronary artery.When every one was stunned ,the patient happily survived the injection with a few skipped beats.
The man behind this horrendous medical mistake was Mr . Sones . He was guilty for many days , spent many sleepless nights ( In spite of the patient surviving the episode ). In fact , he was much amused about the patient’s survival . At that point of time, even a spill over of dye into coronary artery was considered forbidden. He pondered over the incident for months .
Had two queries lingering in his mind .
That was the moment , the concept of diagnostic coronary angiogram was born . He published his observation as an abstract in Circulation journal. Later he did many experiments with video engineering at Kodak labs , X ray technology to improve the cine imaging .By 1964 , he devised a perfect protocol for doing selective coronary angiogram. Then along with Rene Favaloro he pioneered CABG surgery in USA.
Final message
Cardiac catheterisation was invented by Forssman , Cournand , and Richards ,(Nobel prize 1956 ). It was Sones who took it into the coronary arteries and thus it was made possible for a whole new specialty of coronary diagnostics and therapeutic PCI which was conceptualized by another extraordinary human life called Gruentzig. Sones along with Gruentzig definitely deserve a Nobel in medicine which i think will happen soon ! They lived a great life constantly thinking, innovating putting patients interest in the fore front .
Mean while , I argue our youngsters to portray the images of these giants in every cath lab they work .You may get their blessings from heaven , provided you do your interventions with integrity and honesty without any conflict of interest in the patient care.
Do not cry foul when some genuine errors happen in cath lab.Few among us (like Sones ) may innovate those mistakes into glory !
Reference
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F._Mason_Sones#cite_note-3
http://www.wired.com/thisdayintech/2009/10/1030first-coronary-angiogram/
Dr.S.Venkatesan MD 