M. Stephen Heilman
| Marlin Stephen Heilman | |
|---|---|
| Born |
December 25, 1933 Tarentum, Pennsylvania |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Inventor, Emergency Room Physician, Entrepreneur |
Marlin Stephen "Doc" Heilman (born December 25, 1933) is an American physician, entrepreneur and inventor. Among other things, he is credited with inventions (U.S. Patents and Applications) in the fields of contrast enhanced medical imaging, the first implantable cardioverter defibrillator or ICD, the first wearable defibrillator or LifeVest defibrillator, and heart assist devices. His first inventions, a flow controlled angiographic injector and pressure tolerant disposable angiographic syringes, advanced the fields of radiology and cardiology by improving the diagnostic image quality and eliminating the imaging risk of blood borne disease transmission from patient to patient. He founded Medrad Inc, now part of Bayer Healthcare, to manufacture and supply these imaging devices on a worldwide basis. In 2013, an estimated 65 million medical imaging procedures were performed usning Medrad products.
Medrad and its subsidiary Intec Systems, in collaboration with Drs. Michel Mirowski and Morton Mower, developed the world's first implantable cardioverter defibrillator or ICD. ICDs prevent the most common form of heart disease death, namely sudden cardiac death or SCD. According to Hauser, in 2009, 140,000 patients received their initial ICD device and another 30,000 to 40,000 patients received ICD replacements.
In 2014, Heilman and his Vascor coworkers expect to complete the development of a failsafe non-rotary implantable counterpulsation heart assist device that will be powered by a transcutaneous electrical transmission system or TETS. Heilman lives with his wife, Drusie, in the western Pennsylvania countryside near Pittsburgh. They have 5 children and 13 grandchildren.
Heilman was born on Christmas Day, 1933 in Tarentum, Pennsylvania, a small Pittsburgh suburb. His father Glenn, Glenn's father U.O., and Glenn's brother and sister were all physicians. Heilman's brother, Dan, and son, Carl, are also physicians. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania with a Bachelor of Arts degree and chemistry major in 1955, he entered the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine graduating in 1959. There, he developed an interest in medical research and realized that coming technologic advances would provide opportunities for innovative products having breakthrough diagnostic and therapeutic potential. After medical school graduation, he completed a general medical internship in 1960. During this time, a prominent cardiologist from the Cleveland Clinic showed him an early version of an x-ray movie of blood combined with iodine-based contrast medium moving through a patient's heart. Heilman immediately recognized that angiography, the field of providing contrast media-enhanced moving images of a patient's heart, arteries and veins would provide physicians with an extremely valuable diagnostic tool. Having already decided to pursue a career developing medical devices, Heilman opted to forgo a specialty residency. Instead, he joined the US Air Force to satisfy a deferred military service obligation and was stationed at the Soesterberg Air Force base in the Netherlands, where he spent two years as the Military Officer in charge of the 654th Air Force Tactical Hospital. This facility offered first level medical care for approximately 3,500 US military personnel and dependents stationed in the Netherlands. Specialty care for military personnel was provided by air flight to the USAF Wiesbaden Hospital in Germany and the military dependents received their specialty care from the Dutch economy. The Soesterberg air base supported both Dutch and American aircraft as part of the NATO defense system during the cold war. The American aircraft were supersonic fighter interceptor F-102s having air-to-air guided nuclear missiles.
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