Claude Beck
Claude Schaeffer Beck (born November 8, 1894 in Shamokin , Pennsylvania , † October 14, 1971 ) was an American heart surgeon .
Beck studied medicine at Johns Hopkins University with an MD degree in 1921. Originally, he specialized in neurosurgery . He was trained at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston and at the Lakeside Hospitals in Cleveland and was with Harvey Cushing at Harvard University in 1923/24 . From 1924 he was at the Clinic of Case Western Reserve University , where he was Surgical Resident and Crile Research Fellow in surgery from 1924 . There he turned to cardiac surgery and in 1928 became an Associate Surgeon and soon afterwards a demonstrator in surgery, in 1940 professor of neurosurgery and in 1952 the first professor of cardiovascular surgery in the USA. He stayed at the university until his retirement in 1965. He died in 1971 of a stroke.
From 1942 to 1945 he was a surgical advisor to the US Army and received the Legion of Merit . He developed various cardiac surgery techniques, for example the techniques known as Beck I and II for coronary heart disease, which he developed in 1935 and in the late 1940s, respectively. In the 1920s he assisted Elliott Cutler in the first successful mitral valve operations . He was also a pioneer in coronary artery surgery (1935) and the first successful removal of a tumor from the heart.
In 1947 he was the first to successfully use defibrillation during heart surgery. The operation on a 14-year-old boy with a congenital heart disease was almost over when a cardiac arrest set in. Beck first attempted open heart cardiac massage for 45 minutes before inserting a defibrillator he had developed with James Rand, inspired by observations made by Case Western physiologist Carl J. Wiggers . The measure during the operation was a complete success. He then taught numerous doctors and medical staff in technology and in the defibrillators for external use that emerged in the 1950s. Three symptoms of acute pericardial tamponade are named after him (Beck's Triad).
He had been married to Ellen Manning since 1928 and had three daughters.
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| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Beck, Claude |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Beck, Claude Schaeffer (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American surgeon |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 8, 1894 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Shamokin , Pennsylvania |
| DATE OF DEATH | October 14, 1971 |