Awards & Winners

John Heysham Gibbon

Date of Birth 29-September-1903
Place of Birth Philadelphia
(Pennsylvania, United States of America, Area code 215, Area code 267, Area codes 215 and 267)
Nationality United States of America
Also know as Dr. John Heysham Gibbon
Profession Physician
John Heysham Gibbon Jr., AB, MD, was an American surgeon best known for inventing the heart-lung machine and performing subsequent open heart surgeries which revolutionized heart surgery in the twentieth century. He was the son of Dr. John Heysham Gibbon, Sr., and Marjorie Young Gibbon, and came from a long line of medical doctors including his father, grandfather Robert, great-grandfather John and great-great grandfather. Gibbon received his AB from Princeton University in 1923 and his MD from Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia in 1927. Later, he received honorary degrees from the Universities of Princeton, Buffalo and Pennsylvania and Dickinson College. He married Mary Hopkinson, daughter of painter Charles Hopkinson. He had four children: Mary, John, Alice and Marjorie. During World War II, he served in the Burma China India Theater. Gibbon died in 1973, ironically from a heart attack, while playing tennis. His papers are held at the National Library of Medicine in Bethesda, Maryland.

Awards by John Heysham Gibbon

Check all the awards nominated and won by John Heysham Gibbon.

1968


Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award
(For designing and developing the heart-lung machine.)

1960


Gairdner Foundation International Award
(In recognition of his contributions to the knowledge of cardiology, and especially for his achievement in developing and using a heart-lung machine in the first successful surgical correction of a heart defect in a human patient, thus introducing new and practical means for prolonging life among persons with congenital and acquired heart defects.)