Bjørn Aage Ibsen (30 August 1915 – 7 August 2007) was a Danish

anaesthetist Anesthesiology, anaesthesiology or anaesthesia is the medical specialty concerned with the total perioperative care of patients before, during and after surgery. It encompasses anesthesia, intensive care medicine, critical emergency medicine, a ...

and founder of

intensive-care medicine Intensive care medicine, usually called critical care medicine, is a medical specialty that deals with seriously or critically ill patients who have, are at risk of, or are recovering from conditions that may be life-threatening. It includes p ...

. He also invented one of the first functional positive pressure ventilators, which saved many lives during the

poliomyelitis Poliomyelitis ( ), commonly shortened to polio, is an infectious disease caused by the poliovirus. Approximately 75% of cases are asymptomatic; mild symptoms which can occur include sore throat and fever; in a proportion of cases more severe ...

epidemic in Denmark 1952-1953.

Education

Ibsen graduated in 1940 from medical school at the

University of Copenhagen The University of Copenhagen (, KU) is a public university, public research university in Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark. Founded in 1479, the University of Copenhagen is the second-oldest university in Scandinavia, after Uppsala University. ...

and trained in

anaesthesiology Anesthesiology, anaesthesiology or anaesthesia is the medical specialty concerned with the total perioperative care of patients before, during and after surgery. It encompasses anesthesia, intensive care medicine, critical emergency medicine, ...

from 1949 to 1950 at the

Massachusetts General Hospital Massachusetts General Hospital (Mass General or MGH) is a teaching hospital located in the West End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts. It is the original and largest clinical education and research facility of Harvard Medical School/Harvar ...

Boston Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...

Career

Ibsen became involved in the 1952

outbreak in

Denmark Denmark is a Nordic countries, Nordic country in Northern Europe. It is the metropole and most populous constituent of the Kingdom of Denmark,, . also known as the Danish Realm, a constitutionally unitary state that includes the Autonomous a ...

, where 2,722 patients developed the illness in a 6-month period with 316 suffering respiratory or

airway The respiratory tract is the subdivision of the respiratory system involved with the process of conducting air to the alveoli for the purposes of gas exchange in mammals. The respiratory tract is lined with respiratory epithelium as respiratory ...

paralysis. Treatment had involved the use of the few

negative pressure ventilator A negative pressure ventilator (NPV) is a type of mechanical ventilator that stimulates an ill person's breathing by periodically applying negative air pressure to their body to expand and contract the chest cavity.Shneerson, Dr. John M., Newmarket ...

s available, but these devices, while helpful, were limited and did not protect against aspiration of secretions. After detecting high levels of CO₂ in blood samples and inside a little boy's lung, Ibsen changed management directly. He instituted protracted positive pressure ventilation by means of

intubation Intubation (sometimes entubation) is a medical procedure involving the insertion of a tube into the body. Most commonly, intubation refers to tracheal intubation, a procedure during which an endotracheal tube is inserted into the trachea to supp ...

into the trachea, and enlisting 200 medical students to manually pump oxygen and air into the patients lungs. The first patient treated this way and whose life was saved, was 12-year-old Vivi Ebert, who had serious bulbar polio. In this fashion, mortality declined from 90% to around 25%. Patients were managed in three special 35 bed areas, which aided charting and other management. In 1953, Ibsen set up the world's first medical/surgical

intensive care unit An intensive care unit (ICU), also known as an intensive therapy unit or intensive treatment unit (ITU) or critical care unit (CCU), is a special department of a hospital or health care facility that provides intensive care medicine. An inten ...

in a converted student nurse classroom in Kommunehospitalet (The Municipal Hospital) in

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a population of 1.4 million in the Urban area of Copenhagen, urban area. The city is situated on the islands of Zealand and Amager, separated from Malmö, Sweden, by the ...

, and provided one of the first accounts of the management of

tetanus Tetanus (), also known as lockjaw, is a bacterial infection caused by ''Clostridium tetani'' and characterized by muscle spasms. In the most common type, the spasms begin in the jaw and then progress to the rest of the body. Each spasm usually l ...

with muscle relaxants and controlled ventilation. In 1954, Ibsen was elected head of the department of anaesthesiology at that institution. He jointly authored the first known account of ICU management principles in ''Nordisk Medicin'', 18 September 1958: 'Arbejdet på en Anæsthesiologisk Observationsafdeling' ("The Work in an Anaesthesiologic Observation Unit") with Tone Dahl Kvittingen from Norway.

References

External links

Medical Museion University of Copenhagen

Louise Reisner-Sénélar (2009), The Danish anaesthesiologist Björn Ibsen a pioneer of long-term ventilation on the upper airways

Der dänische Anästhesist Björn Ibsen – ein Pionier der Langzeitbeatmung über die oberen Luftwege, Louise Reisner-Sénélar, 2009
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ibsen, Bjorn Aage Danish physicians Intensivists 2007 deaths 1915 births Danish anesthesiologists Danish medical researchers University of Copenhagen 20th-century Danish physicians