To better your understanding of non-clinical career options and/or facilitate your physician career change, today we introduce you to Robert Jarvik, MD. Dr. Jarvik is an American scientist and physician known for his role in developing the Jarvik-7 artificial heart.
Jarvik was born in Midland, Michigan to Dr. Norman Eugene Jarvik and Edythe Koffler Jarvik and raised in Stamford, Connecticut. [1] Jarvik is married to Parade magazine columnist Marilyn vos Savant. They reside in New York.
Jarvik is a graduate of Syracuse University. He earned a master’s degree in medical engineering from New York University. After that he went to work for Dr. Willem Johan Kolff, a Dutch born physician-inventor at the University of Utah, who produced the first dialysis machine, and who was working on other artificial organs, including a heart. Jarvik received his M.D. in 1976 from the University of Utah. He did not complete an internship or residency and has never been licensed to practice medicine. [2][3]
What came to be known as the Jarvik-7 was in fact the final product of the collaboration of many researchers who came before him, and their contributions to this project. Paul Winchell, ventriloquist and much-loved voice and television series character actor, invented the original artificial heart. With the help and advice of Dr. Henry Heimlich, Winchell designed an artificial heart and built a prototype. He filed for a patent in 1956, which he received in 1963. Winchell donated his patent to the institution and Jarvik, using many of Winchell’s basic principles, took the device further, culminating with the Jarvik-7. One area of research was conducted at the Cleveland Clinic, which was later upgraded to the Cleveland Clinic Lerner Research Institute, a new, independent arm of the hospital, where crucial elements of the fully implantable organs were produced.
Jarvik would work jointly with Kolff on the Jarvik-7 artificial heart, a self-contained unit. No better solution was found for transcutaneous transmission of energy than surgical tunnelling of two 3 cm pneumatic tubes. The control apparatus was shopping-cart sized. Thus, a patient with a Jarvik-7 had very restricted mobility, even if other problems such as embolism and infection were adequately controlled. Patients still required medication — heavy antibiotics as well as other drugs and treatments. Additionally, Jarvik was noted for a key contribution to the heart which involved using ultra thin membranes stacked to form a diaphragmatic surface with a graphite lubricant intermittently placed between the membranes. This increased the longevity of the diaphgragmatic material, which acted to compress the heart pump which was a stumbling block in the development of the device at the time.
Dr. William DeVries first implanted the Jarvik-7, into retired dentist Barney Clark, at the University of Utah on December 2, 1982. During frequent press conferences to update the patient’s condition, Jarvik, along with the head surgeon Dr. William DeVries, briefed the world’s media on Clark’s condition. The next several implantations of the Jarvik 7 heart were conducted by Humana, a large health care insurance company. The second patient, Bill Schroeder, survived 620 days. Mr. Clark, the first patient was in and out of the hospital before his eventual demise.
Later, Jarvik tried forming Symbion, Inc. to manufacture the heart, but he lost the company in a takeover due to his inabilities to focus money acquired by investors in productive development of the device. Dr. Don Olsen would later take over the company and attempt to rescue its demise. Jarvik then founded Jarvik Heart, Inc., and began work to create the Jarvik 2000, a lifetime ventricular assist device.
Since the well-aired 1982 news coverage of the first artificial heart transplant, Jarvik became an instant household name and enjoyed his celebrity status and additional wealth and prestige thoroughly. Jarvik recently has appeared in television pharmaceutical commercials. Starting in 2006, Jarvik has appeared as a spokesman for Pfizer Pharmaceutical’s cholesterol medication Lipitor.
References
1. “Men in the News: A Pair of Skilled Hands to Guide an Artificial Heart: Robert Kiffler Jarvik”. Article in The New York Times, 3 December 1982. Retrieved from [1] on 2006-06-23.
2. “Men in the News: A Pair of Skilled Hands to Guide an Artificial Heart: Robert Kiffler Jarvik”. Article in The New York Times, 3 December 1982. Retrieved from [2] on 2007-05-27.
3. “Is this celebrity doctor’s TV ad right for you?” Article in MSNBC, 1 March 2007. Retrieved from [3] on 2007-05-27.
