Vancouver's Jim McEwen set to join Tesla, Banting, Best in National Inventors Hall of Fame
Credit to Author: Harrison Mooney| Date: Wed, 29 Jan 2020 22:48:13 +0000
When Jim McEwen launched his first automatic surgical tourniquet model in 1985, everything else was immediately rendered obsolete.
“The company that manufactured (the old model) eventually went out of business and recommended customers talk to me about using a safer device,” said McEwen, who was appointed an Officer of the Order of Canada in 2011.
In May, the B.C.-based biomedical engineer will receive another major honour when he becomes the first Vancouverite inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, joining an illustrious roster that includes Samuel Morse, Nikola Tesla, and fellow Canadians Frederick Banting and Charles Best, the co-discoverers of insulin.
McEwen’s microprocessor-controlled tourniquet system revolutionized surgery.
The idea arose in the late 1970s after McEwen, who had just earned a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from UBC, learned of a patient at Vancouver General Hospital who was injured by a tourniquet during surgery.
“I looked at that and said: how can something be made that would have much better control of the pressure, much better interaction with the operating staff, would have alarms if there were hazards or problems and safely keep the pressure on the patient at the lowest levels needed during the duration of surgery,” McEwen explained. Four decades later, the tourniquets created by the inventor and his team at Vancouver’s Medical Device Development Centre have been used in more than 80 million surgical procedures around the world — nearly 20,000 every day.
In addition to McEwen, NIHF’s class of 2020 includes former trapeze artist Floyd Smith, inventor of the modern parachute, and Lisa Lindahl, Hinda Miller and Polly Smith, the inventors of one of the most revolutionary garments of the last century: the sports bra.
The group of 22 will be honoured in May at The Greatest Celebration of American Innovation, a black-tie ceremony at the National Building Museum in Washington D.C.
“I’m actually one of the few people who will go to the patent office instead of the White House,” he said.
The ceremony will be emceed by Danica McKellar, former child star of The Wonder Years, but McEwen said he’s more excited to meet the man who invented the microprocessor.
McEwen is pleased just to be recognized, he said, as Hall of Fame nods don’t come as easily in fields like engineering and technology as they do in, say, hockey or basketball — which is ironic, since one could make a case for McEwen’s induction to those hallowed institutions as well. A recent twist on his automatic tourniquet is now widely used by professional sports teams.
McEwen said the initial intention was to safely control the blood flow during surgery. “But if you control the amount of blood that goes into a limb, then you can accelerate rehabilitation around surgery.”
“Six thousand times a day those new devices are being used, by 100 pro sports teams. When the Raptors played the Golden State Warriors,” he said, “we didn’t care who won because they were both using our technology.”
CLICK HERE to report a typo.
Is there more to this story? We’d like to hear from you about this or any other stories you think we should know about. Email vantips@postmedia.com.