Dr Bob Bartlett - A lifetime of teaching, of breaking boundaries, of ability and humility.
The twentieth century surgeon Dr John Gibbon is widely credited for inventing the heart-lung machine, however it is Dr Robert Bartlett who must be celebrated for uniting a global community committed to the further improvement of the technology, increased clinical knowledge and greater education and support for those who administer it and those who receive it.
This month, some three decades since the first meeting of the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO), members of this global community gathered on the steps of the Rackham Auditorium in Ann Arbor for a special celebration of Dr Bartlett’s extraordinary achievements.
Among the guests was CCRG Founder and Director Professor John Fraser, who is Immediate Past President of the Asia Pacific Chapter of the ELSO, having held the unenviable position during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I am fortunate and blessed to call Dr Bartlett not only a mentor, but a dear friend. Countless lives have been saved as a result of his quest to fulfil Dr Gibbon’s vision and the generations of students, engineers, and clinicians he has mentored and inspired.
“All the great leaders in medicine, take an idea and check it and check it and then check it again – it’s the only way you make innovation happen.
“For me, watching him and having the privilege to run my ideas past him has been a career highlight. The selfless way he interacts, to have the ability but also the humility... the ability and the humility – that about sums him up,” said Professor Fraser.
“Looking at Gibbon’s challenge in the early days of heart-lung machines, we’ve come a long way. And Dr Bartlett’s work has been instrumental in meeting those challenges and helping to solve those problems,” said Scott Merz, Founder and Former CEO, MC3, Inc.
Members of the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization recreate the photo on the Rackham Auditorium stairs in Ann Arbor - 35 years since the first meeting.
