CPR Pioneer Dies at 79
Monday August 4, 2003
Known as the father of modern day cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR), medical pioneer Dr. Peter Safar died Sunday evening of cancer in his Mt. Lebanon home.
A Distinguished Professor of Resuscitation Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Dr. Safar's research efforts and accomplishments in emergency medicine, critical care medicine, resuscitation research and disaster re-animatology have saved many lives and gained international recognition.
"Throughout his distinguished career, Peter Safar worked tirelessly and effectively to cheat death," said University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Mark Nordenberg. "He fundamentally re-shaped approaches to medical treatment and helped save hundreds of thousands of lives. His own life was characterized by intellectual power, uncompromising standards and personal grace. He was one of a kind and will be sorely missed by his friends and colleagues, here and around the world."
"Peter Safar was an incredible man who not only saved a countless number of lives through his work but influenced generations through his genius, elegance, humanism and remarkable purpose. I don't think a day went by that Peter didn't do something good for mankind," said Patrick Kochanek, M.D., director of the Safar Center for Resuscitation Research at the University of Pittsburgh.
Dr. Safar was born in 1924 in Vienna, Austria. After brief studies in pathology research, oncology and surgery at the University of Vienna (1948-49) and Yale University (1949-50), he received his anesthesiology training at the University of Pennsylvania in 1950-52.
He initiated, developed and chaired academic anesthesiology departments in three institutions: the National Cancer Institute in Lima, Peru (1952-53), Baltimore City Hospital (BCH, now Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center) (1955- 61) and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) (1961-78).
Dr. Safar and associates developed the department at UPMC into the largest academic anesthesiology department in the United States, which from 1962 to 1999 gave critical care medicine training to more than 500 physicians. The department fathered 10 new programs in anesthesiology, pain control, respiratory therapy, intensive (critical) care medicine, emergency medical services, resuscitation research and disaster reanimatology.
In the 1950s, at Baltimore City Hospital, Dr. Safar documented, with experiments on human volunteers, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) step A (airway control by backward tilt of the head, jaw thrust and open mouth) and step B (the superiority of mouth-to-mouth over manual artificial ventilation).
He combined steps A and B with step C (closed-chest cardiac massage, rediscovered and documented by others) into basic life support (BLS).
In 1961, Safar extended CPR into cardiopulmonary-cerebral resuscitation (CPCR), which he assembled as a sequence of nine steps of basic, advanced and prolonged life support (BLS-ALS-PLS). He co-initiated modern life supporting first aid (LSFA), resuscitation and intensive (critical) care medicine (CCM).
He initiated and developed the first medical-surgical physician-staffed intensive care unit (ICU) in the United States in 1958 at BCH and the first multidisciplinary critical care medicine physician fellowship training program in the world in 1962 at UPMC. He created the first guidelines for community- wide emergency medical services (EMS).
In the 1970s, he began disaster reanimatology research. Starting in 1970, he established research programs into cerebral resuscitation from prolonged cardiac arrest. Since then Dr. Safar and his colleagues developed and used novel models in large animal models, with intensive care and outcome evaluation. This year the World Association for Disaster Medicine named its annual award in Dr. Safar's honor.
His professional publications include 1,389 entries, including 384 peer reviewed original publications, more than 30 books and manuals and more than 600 abstracts. He had been author, editor or co-editor of the first textbooks on respiratory therapy, public health considerations in CCM and anesthesiology, CPCR and emergency medicine. Since the 1960s, he authored the international CPCR guidelines book sponsored by the World Federation of Societies of Anesthesiologists (WFSA), co-initiated the journal Critical Care Medicine (1972), initiated the journal Prehospital and Disaster Medicine (1982), and wrote autobiographic memoirs in a book by the American Society of Anesthesiologists (2000).
Source: University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
A Distinguished Professor of Resuscitation Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, Dr. Safar's research efforts and accomplishments in emergency medicine, critical care medicine, resuscitation research and disaster re-animatology have saved many lives and gained international recognition.
"Throughout his distinguished career, Peter Safar worked tirelessly and effectively to cheat death," said University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Mark Nordenberg. "He fundamentally re-shaped approaches to medical treatment and helped save hundreds of thousands of lives. His own life was characterized by intellectual power, uncompromising standards and personal grace. He was one of a kind and will be sorely missed by his friends and colleagues, here and around the world."
"Peter Safar was an incredible man who not only saved a countless number of lives through his work but influenced generations through his genius, elegance, humanism and remarkable purpose. I don't think a day went by that Peter didn't do something good for mankind," said Patrick Kochanek, M.D., director of the Safar Center for Resuscitation Research at the University of Pittsburgh.
Dr. Safar was born in 1924 in Vienna, Austria. After brief studies in pathology research, oncology and surgery at the University of Vienna (1948-49) and Yale University (1949-50), he received his anesthesiology training at the University of Pennsylvania in 1950-52.
He initiated, developed and chaired academic anesthesiology departments in three institutions: the National Cancer Institute in Lima, Peru (1952-53), Baltimore City Hospital (BCH, now Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center) (1955- 61) and the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center (UPMC) (1961-78).
Dr. Safar and associates developed the department at UPMC into the largest academic anesthesiology department in the United States, which from 1962 to 1999 gave critical care medicine training to more than 500 physicians. The department fathered 10 new programs in anesthesiology, pain control, respiratory therapy, intensive (critical) care medicine, emergency medical services, resuscitation research and disaster reanimatology.
In the 1950s, at Baltimore City Hospital, Dr. Safar documented, with experiments on human volunteers, cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) step A (airway control by backward tilt of the head, jaw thrust and open mouth) and step B (the superiority of mouth-to-mouth over manual artificial ventilation).
He combined steps A and B with step C (closed-chest cardiac massage, rediscovered and documented by others) into basic life support (BLS).
In 1961, Safar extended CPR into cardiopulmonary-cerebral resuscitation (CPCR), which he assembled as a sequence of nine steps of basic, advanced and prolonged life support (BLS-ALS-PLS). He co-initiated modern life supporting first aid (LSFA), resuscitation and intensive (critical) care medicine (CCM).
He initiated and developed the first medical-surgical physician-staffed intensive care unit (ICU) in the United States in 1958 at BCH and the first multidisciplinary critical care medicine physician fellowship training program in the world in 1962 at UPMC. He created the first guidelines for community- wide emergency medical services (EMS).
In the 1970s, he began disaster reanimatology research. Starting in 1970, he established research programs into cerebral resuscitation from prolonged cardiac arrest. Since then Dr. Safar and his colleagues developed and used novel models in large animal models, with intensive care and outcome evaluation. This year the World Association for Disaster Medicine named its annual award in Dr. Safar's honor.
His professional publications include 1,389 entries, including 384 peer reviewed original publications, more than 30 books and manuals and more than 600 abstracts. He had been author, editor or co-editor of the first textbooks on respiratory therapy, public health considerations in CCM and anesthesiology, CPCR and emergency medicine. Since the 1960s, he authored the international CPCR guidelines book sponsored by the World Federation of Societies of Anesthesiologists (WFSA), co-initiated the journal Critical Care Medicine (1972), initiated the journal Prehospital and Disaster Medicine (1982), and wrote autobiographic memoirs in a book by the American Society of Anesthesiologists (2000).
Source: University of Pittsburgh Medical Center
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