Robert Berger (September 26, 1929 – January 1, 2016) was a Hungarian-American

surgeon In modern medicine, a surgeon is a medical professional who performs surgery. Although there are different traditions in different times and places, a modern surgeon usually is also a licensed physician or received the same medical training as ...

specializing in cardiology and

pulmonology Pulmonology (, , from Latin ''pulmō, -ōnis'' "lung" and the Greek suffix "study of"), pneumology (, built on Greek πνεύμων "lung") or pneumonology () is a medical specialty that deals with diseases involving the respiratory tract. ...

. He is known for leading the team of physicians whose patient was the first to survive surgery to implant a partial artificial heart. A Holocaust survivor, Berger is also known for his scholarship on ethics in the medical profession during and after World War II.

Early life and education

Berger was born in 1929 in Debrecen, Hungary. After being forced into hiding during the Holocaust, he eventually crossed the Atlantic and settled in Boston, where he attended

Boston Latin School The Boston Latin School is a public exam school in Boston, Massachusetts. It was established on April 23, 1635, making it both the oldest public school in the British America and the oldest existing school in the United States. Its curriculum f ...

, Harvard University (in Cambridge), and later, the

Boston University School of Medicine The Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, formerly the Boston University School of Medicine, is one of the graduate schools of Boston University. Founded in 1848, the medical school was the first institution in the world ...

Career

Berger played a leading role in numerous pioneering surgical procedures of the heart and lungs. In 1965, he assisted in the first case of a total exchange of blood in a young patient. He also broke ground in the understanding of lung volume reduction surgery, and he helped to develop that procedure. Berger was one of the notable physicians whose work led to the development of an artificial heart. In 1978, Berger headed the team working with a patient who became the first to survive the implantation of a partial artificial heart. At the Boston University School of Medicine, Berger reported that he and his colleagues saved the life of a heart attack victim with the installation of a partial artificial heart device known as the Left Ventricular Assist Device. Starting in 1990, Berger became an outspoken critic of academics citing the scientific experiments conducted on concentration camp prisoners in Nazi Germany. In a study he published that year, Berger argued that, despite numerous citations in the scientific literature, such experiments contained scientific inconsistencies, improper methods, and apparent data falsification. Berger eventually became director of clinical research in the division of thoracic surgery and

interventional pulmonology Interventional pulmonology (IP, also called interventional pulmonary medicine) is a maturing medical sub-specialty from its parent specialty of pulmonary medicine. It deals specifically with minimally invasive endoscopic and percutaneous procedures ...

at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston.

Personal life

Berger was married to a fellow doctor, Patricia Downs Berger, and had two daughters, Shana and Ilana. He died in 2016 at age 86.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Berger, Robert 1929 births 2016 deaths American thoracic surgeons Holocaust survivors Harvard College alumni Boston University School of Medicine alumni Boston Latin School alumni People from Debrecen Hungarian emigrants to the United States