M. Stephen Heilman

Marlin Stephen "Doc" Heilman (born December 25, 1933) is an American physician, entrepreneur and inventor. He is credited with inventions in the fields of contrast enhanced medical imaging, the first implantable cardioverter defibrillator or ICD, the first wearable defibrillator or LifeVest defibrillator, and heart assist devices. His first inventions, a flow controlled angiographic injector and pressure tolerant disposable angiographic syringes, advanced the fields of radiology and cardiology by improving the diagnostic image quality and eliminating the imaging risk of blood borne disease transmission from patient to patient. He founded Medrad Inc, now part of Bayer Healthcare, to manufacture and supply these imaging devices on a worldwide basis. In 2013, an estimated 65 million medical imaging procedures were performed using Medrad products.

Medrad and its subsidiary Intec Systems, in collaboration with Michel Mirowski and Morton Mower, developed the world's first implantable cardioverter defibrillator or ICD.

Early life and education Heilman was born on Christmas Day, 1933 in Tarentum, Pennsylvania.

Early career Heilman worked as a Commander in the Air Force at the Tactical Air Command Hospital in the Netherlands from 1961 to 1963.

Defibrillators

Together with Mirowski and Mower through a company called Intec Systems, Heilman made the initial human automatic implantable defibrillator. In 2002, based on an ICD invention, Heilman, Langer, Mirowski and Mower were inducted into the United States Inventors Hall of Fame.