Leon Katz (biomedical engineer) explained

Birth Date:20 December 1924
Birth Place:Montreal, Quebec, Canada
Alma Mater:McGill University

Leon Katz (December 20, 1924 – January 9, 2015) was a Canadian biomedical engineer.[1] [2] [3] [4] [5]

Early life and education

Katz was born in Montreal, Quebec, the son of Regina (née Fang) and Harry Katz, who had immigrated in the early 1900s from Romania.[6] [7]

Katz graduated Commercial High School in June 1941 with top honours. In 1950 he graduated from McGill University with a Bachelor of Engineering (Electrical Engineering: Communications) degree that he paired with course work in physics and neurology.

Military service

In 1943, Leon Katz volunteered for active service. As a Canadian soldier stationed in England and fluent in the German language, Katz was seconded to the British Army of the Rhine Control Commission for Germany (CCG). Later stationed in Düsseldorf, a heavily bombed city in the American Zone, Katz served in the CCG's Joint Special Investigations Detachment, enforcing Military Government Laws. In recognition of his military service, Katz was awarded the Canadian Volunteer Service Medal (CVSM), the Clasp to the CVSM, the War Medal 1939-45, and the General Service Badge.[8] He recorded personal testimony about his WWII service for The Memory Project.[9]

Biomedical engineering career

In 1950, while enrolled in McGill's Graduate School, Physiology Department, Leon Katz was hired by Dr. Herbert Jasper, Chairman of Experimental Neurology at McGill University, to work at the Montreal Neurological Institute where Katz worked closely with Leslie A. Geddes, Head of the Engineering and Technology section.[10] Together, Geddes and Katz conceived and developed medical devices and technologies for Dr. Wilder Penfield, specific to his pioneering brain-mapping surgical needs, and services to treat brain-related diseases.[11] [12] [13]

From 1952 to 1955, Katz served as Director and co-founder of the first Canadian medical Radio-Isotope Laboratory, located at the Jewish General Hospital.[14] [15] [16] Concurrently, Katz conducted pioneering work on cardiac pacing at the Université de Montréal with Dr. Jean-Jacques Lussier,[17] and Dr. Jack Hopps[18] at the National Research Council of Canada.[19] [20]

From 1955 to 1960, Katz served as Director of the Biomedical Engineering Division, for the Founder of the Institut de Cardiologie de Montréal, Dr. (Senator) Paul David.[21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] Katz ultimately conceived, designed, and hand-constructed an original heart-lung bypass machine, with monitoring and control instrumentation.[28] [29]

In response to the particular needs of Dr. Osman Gialloreto,[30] [31] [32] [33] Katz researched, designed and organized the construction of the haemodynamics and cardiac catheterization clinical laboratory. In response to the needs of Dr. Léo Laflèche[34] and Dr. Edouard Gagnon,[35] Leon Katz, then Chief of the Biophysics Service, established, managed, and stocked a human Homograft Bank, with lyophilized graft.[36]

From 1960 to 1973, Katz served as Director, Biomedical Engineering, and Chief Perfusionist for Open Heart Surgery, at Hôpital Notre-Dame.[37] [38] Katz worked in cardiac surgery, devising new methods to measure, monitor, and control the oxygen saturation of the hemoglobin, the partial pressure of oxygen dissolved in the plasma, and the pH of the blood during perfusion); he designed cardiac operating rooms and served as Perfusionist in hundreds of open-heart, cardio-pulmonary bypass operations.

Katz invented medical devices for many fields of medicine.[39]

From 1965 to 1970, Katz also founded, and was Chief Biomedical Engineer of a commercial medical device manufacturing company - Medco Instruments Inc., later acquired by Air Shields Incorporated. During this period, Katz designed and developed a number of critical-care medical products that were subsequently mass-produced and sold throughout the world, including an infant apnea monitor, the Air Shields Infant Incubator,[40] external cardiac pacemakers, a DC Defibrillator.[41]

From 1973 to 1988, Katz was Chief, Diagnostic Devices Division, and Evaluation and Standards Division, Bureau of Medical Devices, Health Protection Branch, Health and Welfare Canada.[42] [43] [44] Katz directed a team of researchers and technicians in over 1,700 high-priority concerns and investigations related to medical devices, and participated in drafting and implementing national legislation and corrective regulatory measures to reduce or eliminate device hazards undermining patient health and safety.

Some of the high-priority devices which benefited from Leon Katz's single, or joint investigative and corrective actions included: evacuated blood-collection tubes,[45] venipuncture,[46] false-negative smears in gynaecological cytology,[47] patient restraint and safety vests[48] [49] misconnections of medical tubing.[50] [51]

Katz also wrote and served as Editor of the Departmental Medical Devices Surveillance bulletins[52] [53] [54] [55] and contributed articles to Dimensions in Health Service.[56] [57] [58]

Publications, awards and honours

Notes and References

  1. Web site: Paul Dewar, "Leon Katz" on Feb. 2nd, 2015 | openparliament.ca. openparliament.ca.
  2. Wall, Laurence: Leon Katz was a life-saving gamechanger in patient care,Globe and Mail, February 6, 2015
  3. Katz, Floralove: Dad a Friend and a Mentor to Many, Ottawa Citizen, March 14, 2015
  4. Web site: Leon Katz Archives.
  5. Katz, Floralove: Leon Katz: biomedical technology innovator, The Canadian Jewish news, April 16, 2015
  6. Web site: Leon Katz. CHC|CPC.
  7. Web site: Leon Katz. June 30, 2017.
  8. https://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/medals-decorations/details/32 General Service Badge
  9. Web site: Leon Katz . The Memory Project . 23 December 2020.
  10. Web site: Leslie A. Geddes.
  11. Web site: McGill Publications Neuro News In Memoriam March 2015.
  12. Web site: Wilder Graves Penfield. The Neuro.
  13. Penfield had Katz assist in most surgeries, using many of the Geddes-Katz inventions, including a neurostimulator with radio-frequency isolated probe; a multi-channel system for recording brainwaves from the exposed cortex; fine-wire leucotomes; glass microelectrodes for recording signals from individual brain cells.
  14. Web site: Hôpital Général Juif | Jewish General Hospital. Hôpital Général Juif.
  15. Great Accuracy Feature of JGH Machine, Your Community, IX: 4, July, 1954.
  16. Nuclear Rays from Humans Measured by JGH Machine, Montreal Gazette, November 5, 1954.
  17. Web site: Mr. Jean Jacques Lussier. Office of the Secretary to the Governor. General. The Governor General of Canada.
  18. [Jack Hopps]
  19. Hopps, John A., P. Eng., Passing Pulses, The Pacemaker and Medical Engineering: A Canadian Story, Publishing Plus Limited, Ottawa, p. 43, 1995.
  20. Katz designed and constructed a unique stimulator with widely variable pulse parameters to meet the challenges of both internal and external pacing.
  21. Web site: Our founder. Montreal Heart Institute.
  22. Web site: Paul David MD | Canadian Medical Hall of Fame. www.cdnmedhall.org.
  23. Web site: Paul David | l'Encyclopédie Canadienne. www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca.
  24. Book: Alain, Jacques. Docteur Paul David, institut de cardiologie de Montréal. January 1, 1986. .
  25. Cœur Artificiel utilisé a l’Institut de cardiologie : premier cas operé avec succes dans la Province de Québec, La Presse, Montreal, 16 juillet 1957.
  26. Jacques, Alain (1985). Une Âme Une Équipe: Docteur Paul David, Institut de Cardiologie de Montréal. Laporte & Cie (Éditeurs) Inc.
  27. Katz designed the operating theatres for cardiac surgeries, and addressed numerous problems associated with whole-body perfusion during open heart surgery. Over the following years, he designed numerous cardiac catheter labs across the Province of Quebec.
  28. Grondin, Claude, M., M.D., The Montreal Heart Institute: The Idea and The Man Behind It, Canadian Journal of Cardiology, 21: 12: 1007-1010, 2005.
  29. Grondin, Claude, M., M.D., Histoire de la Chirurgie Cardiaque a l’ICM, 2006.
  30. Gialloretto, Osman, M.D., Indication et valeur du catheterism cardiac: étude de 840 examens pratiquées sur 789 malades, L’Union médical du Canada, 88: 1959.
  31. Web site: Décès de Dr Osman Philip Gialloreto, fondateur de Villa Medica - Hôpital de réadaptation Villa Medica. December 18, 2017.
  32. Web site: Gialloreto, Osman P.. Canadian Medical Association.
  33. Web site: Osman GIALLORETO Obituary (2017) - ROCKCLIFFE, ON - The Gazette. www.legacy.com.
  34. Web site: Remembering the life of Leo LA FLÈCHE. montrealgazette.remembering.ca.
  35. Web site: Le coup d'éclat de l'Institut de cardiologie. Le Devoir.
  36. Because commercial vascular grafts were not yet available, the surgeons used these human grafts in emergency, life-and-death cases of aortic aneurisms, coarctation of the aorta, and other urgent arterial repairs. To produce the homografts, Katz devised, constructed, and operated an original lyophilization system that used liquid nitrogen and very high vacuum drying under very rigorous sterility conditions.
  37. Rio, André, La Main Du Maitre, L’ Équipe, Hôpital Notre-Dame, Montréal II:1962.
  38. Par Reconnaissance, un Montréalais offre à l’hôpital Notre-Dame un cœur-poumon artificiel, La Presse, No 4 : No 108 ; p. 28, (Montréal), vendredi 19 février 1960.
  39. In the field of Radiology, he invented a high-speed injector, using compressed air in a piston for lymphangiography diagnostic procedures. In Obstetrics, using innovative electronic subtraction techniques and the newly available low-noise transistors, bandwidth filters, and operational amplifiers, Leon Katz researched, designed and hand-built an original fetal cardiotachometer – possibly the first in the world. For Pain Clinics, Katz produced a number of different biofeedback sensing, amplifying, and display devices. For the Otolaryngology Department, to detect, diagnose, and treat vestibular diseases, Katz designed, built and installed an original rotating chair with very tightly controlled speed, acceleration, deceleration, start and stop times, reversal time, and saw-tooth motions: he transmitted the ENG signal via short-range wireless telemetry to solve the problem of ENG electrodes that could not be connected directly to the pen recorder.
  40. Web site: Air-Shields Isolette C550 QT-XL Infant Incubator.
  41. Web site: capitalheritage-leonkatz.
  42. Web site: Medical Devices Directorate Government of Canada.
  43. Katz, Leon, P. Eng., The Regulation of Medical Devices in Canada, Paper Delivered During the Proceeds of the Fifth Canadian Medical Biological Engineering Society, 1974
  44. Katz, Leon, P. Eng., Medical Device Problem Reports: A Retrospective Seven-Year Study, Journal of Health Care Technology, 86: 7, 1986.
  45. Katz, Leon, P. Eng., David Johnson, Ph.D., Philip D. Neufeld, Ph.D., Kamlesh G. Gupta, Ph.D. Evacuated Blood-Collection Tubes – The Backflow Hazard. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 113: 208-212, 1975.
  46. Katz, Leon, P. Eng., David Johnson, Ph.D., Neufeld, Philip D., Ph.D., Kamlesh G. Gupta, Ph.D. The Backflow Problem in Venipuncture, The Merck Manual, 13: 344, 1976.
  47. Katz, L., P. Eng., I. Hinberg, Ph. D., and F. Weber. False-Negative Smears in Gynaecological Cytology, The Lancet, 1: 562, 1979.
  48. Katz, Leon, P. Eng., Accidental Strangulation from Vest Restraints, Journal of the American Medical Association, 257: 232-233, 1987.
  49. Katz, Leon, P. Eng., Patient Restraints – Are the Benefits Worth the Risks?, Dimensions in Health Service, 65: S32, 1988.
  50. Katz, Leon, P. Eng., Inadvertent Misconnection of Medical Tubing: Protective Incompatibility, Journal of the American Medical Association, 256: 2517, 1986.
  51. Katz, Leon, P. Eng., Hazards of Medical Device Misconnection, Medical Devices Surveillance, 1: 1: 13-15, 1987.
  52. Katz, Leon, P. Eng., Editor, Medical Devices Surveillance, 2: 1, 1988.
  53. Katz, Leon, P. Eng., Hospital Sterilizer Explosions, Medical Devices Surveillance, 1: 1: 3-8, 1987.
  54. Katz, Leon, P. Eng., Directions for Use of Disinfectants in Hospitals, Medical Devices Surveillance, 1: 1: 9, 1987.
  55. Katz, Leon, P. Eng., Hospital Beds and Side Rails: A Continuing Source of Mishaps, Medical Devices Surveillance, 2: 1, 1988.
  56. Katz, Leon, P. Eng., High Energy Devices in the Operating Room – A Growing Fire Hazard, Dimensions in Health Service, 65: S27, 1988.
  57. Katz, Leon, P. Eng., et al., Electric Shock Incident, Dimensions in Health Service, 65: S36, 1989.
  58. Katz, Leon, P. Eng., Guidelines for Selection and Safe Use of Hospital Bed Side Rails, Surveillance Issue, 3: 1, Dimensions in Health Service, 66: 1989.
  59. Web site: Order of Ontario Members.
  60. Ottawans appointed to Order of Ontario, The Ottawa Citizen, p. C3, 13 December 2006.
  61. Fouchard, Steve, Local Order of Ontario inductee a pioneer in medical technology, The News EMC, 4 January 2007, p. 1.
  62. Lazarus, David, About Ourselves, The Canadian Jewish News, January 11, 2007, p. 20
  63. Arseniuk Melissa, Ottawa pair invested into Order of Ontario, The Ottawa Citizen, p. D3, 28 December 2006.
  64. Web site: CMBES Awards & Nominations.
  65. Web site: CMBES. www.cmbes.ca.
  66. Web site: The World Society of Cardiovascular & Thoracic Surgeons. wscts.
  67. Web site: ottawaheart.
  68. Honouring the Legends of Medicine, The Ottawa Citizen, p. A1, p. F1; August 18, 2006.
  69. Web site: Governor General to invest 37 recipients into the Order of Canada. Office of the Secretary to the Governor. General. February 19, 2008. The Governor General of Canada.
  70. Web site: Mr. Leon Katz. Office of the Secretary to the Governor. General. The Governor General of Canada.
  71. Web site: medal of the officer of the order of canada - Google Search. www.google.com.
  72. Order of Canada: 40TH Anniversary, Chrétien, Manning, Weir honoured, Globe and Mail, 30 June 2007.
  73. Brooke, Sylvia (Tribune Correspondent), Early life shaped Order of Canada recipient's impressive accomplishments, The Jewish Tribune, March 20, 2008, p. 15, www.jewishtribune.ca
  74. Web site: Queen Elizabeth II Diamond Jubilee Medal. Office of the Secretary to the Governor. General. April 18, 2017. The Governor General of Canada.
  75. Web site: The Engineering Institute of Canada/.
  76. Web site: Leon Katz - Ottawa, Ontario - Citizen Memorials on Waymarking.com. www.waymarking.com.

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