Victor Parsonnet | |
---|---|
Born | Newark, New Jersey, U.S. | August 29, 1924
Occupation | Cardiac surgeon |
Victor Parsonnet (born August 29, 1924) is an American cardiac surgeon who contributed significantly to the evolution of cardiac pacemaking. [1]
Parsonnet grew up in Newark, New Jersey and attended Weequahic High School before enrolling at Cornell University. [1] [2] [3] He joined the U.S. Navy Reserve during World War II and then went on to medical school. [1] [3] In 1947 he finished his medical studies at New York University School of Medicine. [4] [1] [3]
In 1955, Parsonnet joined his father's practice at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center, in Newark, New Jersey, which his grandfathers, Max Danzis and Victor Parsonnet, co-founded in 1901. [1] Parsonnet conducted research and studied with pioneers of the heart surgery field, Michael DeBakey and Denton Cooley (the first person in the United States to perform a heart transplant in 1968). [1] Parsonnet was the first surgeon in New Jersey to implant a permanent pacemaker (1961) and to complete a heart transplant (1985) and kidney transplant. [1] [5] [3] When asked about his success, he simply says, "I was in the right place at the right time". [1] [3]
At Beth Israel, Parsonnet served as Chief of Surgery at Beth Israel, Medical director of the Pacemaker and Defibrillator Evaluation Center and director of Surgical Research. [1]
Parsonnet, helped co-found the North American Society of Pacing and Electrophysiology. [6] He has authored over 600 articles and 5 books. [1] He also holds five patents. [1]
In the community, Parsonnet served as chair of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra for many years. [1] [3] He also has been a board member at the Jewish Community Foundation of Greater MetroWest NJ and a board member of the Jewish Historical Society of New Jersey. [1] [3]
Parsonnet retired in 2016. [3] In 2019, he was inducted into the New Jersey Hall of Fame. [1] [7] He turned 100 on August 29, 2024. [8]
An artificial cardiac pacemaker, commonly referred to as simply a pacemaker, is an implanted medical device that generates electrical pulses delivered by electrodes to one or more of the chambers of the heart. Each pulse causes the targeted chamber(s) to contract and pump blood, thus regulating the function of the electrical conduction system of the heart.
Cardiac electrophysiology is a branch of cardiology and basic science focusing on the electrical activities of the heart. The term is usually used in clinical context, to describe studies of such phenomena by invasive (intracardiac) catheter recording of spontaneous activity as well as of cardiac responses to programmed electrical stimulation - clinical cardiac electrophysiology. However, cardiac electrophysiology also encompasses basic research and translational research components. Specialists studying cardiac electrophysiology, either clinically or solely through research, are known as cardiac electrophysiologists.
Clarence Walton Lillehei, was an American surgeon who pioneered open-heart surgery, as well as numerous techniques, equipment and prostheses for cardiothoracic surgery.
Geoffrey Gordon Wickham was one of the pioneers of cardiac pacemaking.
A ventricular assist device (VAD) is an electromechanical device that provides support for cardiac pump function, which is used either to partially or to completely replace the function of a failing heart. VADs can be used in patients with acute or chronic heart failure, which can occur due to coronary artery disease, atrial fibrillation, valvular disease, and other conditions.
Maimonides Medical Center is a non-profit, non-sectarian hospital located in Borough Park, in the New York City borough of Brooklyn, in the U.S. state of New York. Maimonides is both a treatment facility and academic medical center with 711 beds, and more than 70 primary care and sub-specialty programs. As of August 1, 2016, Maimonides Medical Center was an adult and pediatric trauma center, and Brooklyn's only pediatric trauma center.
The University of Alabama at Birmingham Marnix E. Heersink School of Medicine is the medical school of the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) located in Birmingham, Alabama, United States with branch campuses in Huntsville, Montgomery, and Tuscaloosa. Residency programs are also located in Selma, Huntsville, and Montgomery. It is part of the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) and the UAB Health System, one of the largest academic medical centers in the United States.
Paul Maurice Zoll was a Jewish American cardiologist and one of the pioneers in the development of the artificial cardiac pacemaker and cardiac defibrillator.
Weequahic High School is a four-year comprehensive public high school serving students in ninth through twelfth grades, located in the Weequahic section of Newark in Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. The school is operated by the Newark Public Schools and is located at 279 Chancellor Avenue. The school has been accredited by the Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Elementary and Secondary Schools since 1935. The school was listed on the New jersey register and the National Register of Historic Places in 2024.
A biological pacemaker is one or more types of cellular components that, when "implanted or injected into certain regions of the heart," produce specific electrical stimuli that mimic that of the body's natural pacemaker cells. Biological pacemakers are indicated for issues such as heart block, slow heart rate, and asynchronous heart ventricle contractions.
Adrian Kantrowitz was an American cardiac surgeon whose team performed the world's second heart transplant attempt at Maimonides Medical Center in Brooklyn, New York on December 6, 1967. The infant lived for only six hours. At a press conference afterwards, Kantrowitz emphasized that he considered the operation to have been a failure.
Morton Maimon Mower was an American cardiologist specializing in electrophysiology and the co-inventor of the automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillator. He served in several professional capacities at Sinai Hospital and Cardiac Pacemakers Inc. In 1996, he became the chairman and chief executive officer of Mower Research Associates. He was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2002 for the development of the automatic implantable cardioverter defibrillator with Michel Mirowski in the 1970s. He continued his research in the biomechanical engineering laboratories at Johns Hopkins University.
Newark Beth Israel Medical Center (NBIMC), previously Newark Beth Israel Hospital, is a 665-bed quaternary care, teaching hospital located in Newark, New Jersey serving the healthcare needs for Newark and the Northern Jersey area. The hospital is owned by the RWJBarnabas Health System and is the third-largest hospital in the system.
Åke Senning was a Swedish cardiac surgeon who worked at University Hospital of Zürich from 1961 until his retirement in 1985.
Cooperman Barnabas Medical Center (CBMC), formerly Saint Barnabas Medical Center (SBMC), is a 597-bed non-profit major teaching hospital located in Livingston, New Jersey. An affiliate of RWJBarnabas Health (formerly known as Barnabas Health and Saint Barnabas Health Care System), it is the oldest and largest nonprofit, nonsectarian hospital in New Jersey.
Heart of Stone is a 2009 documentary film about Weequahic High School in Newark, New Jersey, the United States, directed by Beth Toni Kruvant, with Zach Braff serving as executive producer. The film relates the struggles of Principal Ron Stone and the rest of the school's administration, plus students and alumni to return the school, working with African American and Jewish alumni, to its previous glory in the years before the 1967 Newark riots.
Weequahic is a neighborhood in the city of Newark in Essex County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. Part of the South Ward, it is separated from Clinton Hill by Hawthorne Avenue on the north, and bordered by the township of Irvington on the west, Newark Liberty International Airport and Dayton on the east, and Hillside Township and the city of Elizabeth on the south. There are many well maintained homes and streets. Part of the Weequahic neighborhood has been designated a historic district; major streets are Lyons Avenue, Bergen Street, and Chancellor Avenue. Newark Beth Israel Medical Center is a major long-time institution in the neighborhood.
A heart transplant, or a cardiac transplant, is a surgical transplant procedure performed on patients with end-stage heart failure or severe coronary artery disease when other medical or surgical treatments have failed. As of 2018, the most common procedure is to take a functioning heart, with or without both lungs, from a recently deceased organ donor and implant it into the patient. The patient's own heart is either removed and replaced with the donor heart or, much less commonly, the recipient's diseased heart is left in place to support the donor heart.
Eric A. Rose is an American cardiothoracic surgeon, scientist, entrepreneur and professor and Chairman of the Department of Population Health Science & Policy, and Associate Director for Clinical Outcomes at Mount Sinai Heart. He is best known for performing the first successful paediatric heart transplant, in 1984 while at NewYork–Presbyterian Hospital (NYP).
Keith Reemtsma was an American transplant surgeon, best known for the cross-species kidney transplantation operation from chimpanzee to human in 1964. With only the early immunosuppressants and no long-term dialysis, the female recipient survived nine months, long enough to return to work.