Endowed chair to honor cardiothoracic pioneer

Pioneering cardiovascular surgeon William W.L. Glenn, M.D., is being honored with a professorship in his name at the School of Medicine. During almost 40 years on the faculty Glenn and his colleagues were among the first to develop innovative techniques in cardiovascular and thoracic surgery. In 1948 he used a mechanical pump as a substitute for the heart’s function. Six years later he devised a shunt to bypass a malformed right heart. Under Glenn’s leadership, in 1959, the first use of the radio frequency cardiac pacemaker in the Western Hemisphere took place at Yale. Glenn also invented the phrenic pacemaker, a diaphragmatic pacemaker that allowed patients afflicted with Ondine’s Curse to breathe regularly. The list of firsts continued through 1985, when Glenn retired. He has received his share of honors during his career—including the Francis Gilman Blake Award for excellence in the teaching of medical sciences and a lecture in his honor established by the Council on Cardiovascular Surgery of the American Heart Association. In June the medical school announced the establishment of the endowed chair, the William W.L. Glenn, M.D., Professorship in Cardiothoracic Surgery.