The 1 Masterpiece of Modern Medicine That Almost Didn39t Make It

The cardiac surgery landscape has undergone significant transformations over the past century.

What used to be thought of as impossible medical feats have now become a daily occurrence.

On a daily basis, surgeons perform procedures such as grafting arteries, fixing structural heart defects, or even transplanting hearts.

This sudden shift can be largely attributed to a single invention that began in a lab back in the 1950s: the heart-lung machine.

In the past, performing open-heart surgery was a delicate and perilous task due to the minute timeframe surgeons had to work in before the patient succumbed to brain damage from lack of oxygen.

This tiny window made operations incredibly tricky.

The turn of events occurred when doctors at a university started probing into other solutions to these constraints by means of a device that enabled pumping of blood from the body while adding oxygen to it – essentially taking the functions that the heart and lungs perform.

Their first prototype, based on an existing concept of rotating drums covered with a thin layer of film where the blood was exposed to the air, had serious repercussions when it first came to be used in actual patients.

The risks of using this new device were a major source of anxiety but thankfully paved the way for the advancement in medical technology.

Upon further refinement, the results of heart surgeries became more successful.

Much credit to the invention should be given to other scientists, and medical engineers who contributed to further refinement in its overall design and creation of newer designs more importantly effective safety protocols that came into place.

Over time, this innovation has made a difference in innumerable lives.

Of all groundbreaking inventions made in recent times, this device will certainly be remembered for making surgical interventions to the heart less risky and possible to perform all thanks to those who first dared envisage the impossible.