Physician Inventors

Moving Health Science and Medicine with Medical Device Invention

Physician inventors create and drive the innovation that cuts costs, alleviates suffering, and ultimately saves lives. Because physicians live on the front line of medical treatment, they recognize the needs of patients and fellow practitioners. They recognize the true value of medical device invention through firsthand experience.

The typical physician inventor focuses on the problem encountered in daily practice, listens to colleagues’ frustrations, and identifies the common problems. These common problems provide fertile ground for new designs and better devices and propel the inventor down the road of the medical pioneer.

Physician Inventors throughout History
A quick search in Google shows the historical significance of the physician inventor:

1. Imhotep
   The earliest physician inventor of record was Imhotep. Ancient Egyptians regarded him as one of their greatest men — so great that he was deified after his death. Imhotep was famed for his innovations in medicine, culture, and architecture.

 

2. Hippocrates
   Of course, Hippocrates developed the Hippocratic oath. But he also developed advanced methods for treatment of many ailments and was a medical pioneer with the invention of many medical devices, like the speculum, that are still in use. Hippocrates is widely considered to be the man who developed naturalistic medical treatment.

 

3. Rene Laennec
   We owe the stethoscope to the French physician Laennoc who, with the invention of the now ubiquitous medical device, promoted its use as a tool to explore the chest cavity.

 

4. Charles Paraz and Alexander Wood
   These two physicians changed the world with their medical device invention of the hypodermic syringe. Paraz lived in France, Wood lived in Scotland. They didn’t work on the invention together, rather each individually invented the syringe at the same time and share credit for its invention.

 

5. Paul Zoll
   Working from earlier inventions Paul Zoll improved and pioneered the use of pacemakers and cardiac defibrillators. Zoll was a practicing physician and a medical pioneer throughout his career and his inventions and refinements were based on his day-to-day experience as a physician.

Moving Forward

It is clear that physician inventors throughout the ages have been the engine of innovation in medicine. Physicians who see opportunities to improve current technology or to create new devices, techniques or treatments should be encouraged and excited to move into the future with their own innovations.

Does the physician inventor need to abandon his practice at this point? No. The best practice is to partner with a specialist, like CUBE Medical Innovations, who can take the innovation and turn it into reality through the work of engineers, manufacturing, testing and marketing specialists. CUBE Medical Innovations provides these specialists to physician inventors to help create and commercialize their medical device inventions while helping the physician concentrate on the creation and of course, their practice. The first step is to contact us for medical device and healthcare product development.

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