Dr. Bernard Lown

Born in Utena, Lithuania

“I’m Jewish and I was born in Lithuania. Some members of my family were destroyed in the Holocaust. I came to this country as a boy. If I’d remained in Europe two more years I would not have survived. So the reality of war was part of my youth.” – Bernard Lown

Moves to Lewiston, Maine

Graduates from University of Maine

He earned a bachelor’s degree in zoology.

Receives MD from Johns Hopkins University

At Johns Hopkins, Lown was known for being an advocate for racial justice, which often got him into trouble. Lown was suspended from school for organizing a lecture by a Black physician on public health issues in the Black community, and he was briefly expelled for rebelling against the segregation of blood in the hospital’s blood bank.

Marries Louise Lown

Bernard and Louise stay together for 73 years until Louise’s death in 2019 and have three children.

“When you ask about my heroes, clearly I have many—my wife Louise foremost.” – Bernard Lown

“Levine Chair” study

With the support of his mentor Dr. Samuel Levine, Lown starts a study challenging the conventional wisdom of keeping heart attack patients on bed rest for 4-6 weeks, instead having them sit up in a comfortable chair. Patient outcomes improved dramatically, changing the standard of practice.

“I am not aware of a single cardiovascular measure since then that improved survival of CHD patients as much as this common sense change in medical management.” – Bernard Lown

Military service during McCarthyism

Dr. Lown was drafted as a Medical Corp captain during the Korean War – but honorably discharged, then redrafted as a private when he refused to name organizations with whom he had worked for peace and social justice.

Invents the direct current defibrillator

Working with fellow refugee and immigrant Baruch Berkovitz, Lown co-invents the direct current defibrillator, a device that would save countless lives and help make open-heart surgery possible.

Physicians for Social Responsibility

Dr. Lown founds Physicians for Social Responsibility to address the threat of nuclear war.

“I had been working so hard on sudden death, but Phillip Noel-Baker taught me that the real death threat in the world was not cardiac, but nuclear. I knew I had to do something. How could I be a doctor and close my eyes to this overwhelming reality?” – Bernard Lown

Coronary Care Unit

Dr. Lown organizes one of the first coronary care units focused on prevention of heart rhythm disorders at the Peter Brigham Hospital in Boston. He demonstrates that by using continuous electrocardiographic monitoring and highly trained nurses, arrhythmias could be identified and treated before becoming dangerous. The Brigham CCU soon became a model for other hospitals to follow.

Lown Cardiovascular Research Foundation

Dr. Lown founds the Lown Cardiovascular Research Foundation to promote cardiovascular health around the world through research, education, and global outreach.

The Foundation was renamed the Lown Institute in 2012 to acknowledge the broader spectrum of issues the foundation was addressing, including medical overuse and underuse, health equity, and cost of care.

International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW)

Dr. Lown and Soviet cardiologist Dr. Evgeni Chazov found the group International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) to unite physicians around the world against nuclear proliferation.

“To me, healing means preventing disease, preventing suffering. And the quintessential evil, nuclear weapons, could only lead to unprecedented suffering.” – Bernard Lown

First IPPNW World Congress

Eighty medical leaders from twelve countries attend the first IPPNW World Congress.

“This was the greatest political issue of our time, because it didn’t just mean the death of an individual, but the death of multitudes. Why would doctors not get involved?” – Bernard Lown

Nobel Peace Prize

On the eve of Dr. Lown and Dr. Chazov’s acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize, a Russian journalist collapses from cardiac arrest at a press conference. Lown and Chazov help resuscitate the reporter and save his life.

“When crisis comes, Soviet and American cardiologists cooperate.” – Bernard Lown

IPPNW Co-Presidents Lown and Chazov meet with Mikhail Gorbachev and help persuade him to extend the Soviet Union’s unilateral moratorium on nuclear weapons testing.

SATELLIFE

Dr. Lown founds SATELLIFE, which used satellites to provide access to medical literature to health professionals in developing countries.

“Medical students in the global South now have medical libraries in their pockets.” – Bernard Lown

The Lost Art of Healing

Dr. Lown publishes The Lost Art of Healing, recounting how medicine strayed from its healing mission, and how we restore the fundamental human relationship between doctor and patient.

“The practice of medicine with a human face is possible in this age of personal involution into the black hole of me-ism. Indeed, it is more necessary than ever.” – Bernard Lown, The Lost Art of Healing

ProCor

Dr. Lown founds ProCor, a global network promoting heart disease prevention in developing countries around the world.

Ad Hoc Committee to Defend Health Care

Dr. Lown organizes a campaign against the industrialization of medicine, demanding a stop to for-profit takeovers of healthcare services in Massachusetts. The campaign’s call to action denouncing market-driven health care and advocating access to care for all was signed by thousands of doctors and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. Their advocacy contributed to the adoption of Massachusetts’ health care reform bill expanding access to care, an early template for President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act.

“We are troubled by any organization that places an interface between the patient and the doctor.” – Bernard Lown

Prescription for Survival

Dr. Lown publishes Prescription for Survival, a memoir focused on his anti-nuclear proliferation activism.

“Events that took place behind the scenes a quarter of a century ago need to be understood. We continue to ignore history at our peril.” — Bernard Lown, Prescription for Survival

Bernard Lown Peace Bridge

Dedicated in Lewiston, Maine.

Avoiding Avoidable Care conference

The Lown Institute, along with the New America Foundation, organizes Avoiding Avoidable Care, the first conference in the world dedicated to the problem of overtreatment.

Dies in Newton, MA at age 99

Dr. Lown died on February 16, 2021. He is survived by his three children, five grand-children and great-grandchild.

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