The College of Arts and Sciences, in collaboration with the Dittrick Museum of Medical History, invites all members of the campus community to the 2021 Zverina Lecture, titled “Made in Cleveland: The Kay-Cross Oxygenator and the history of heart-lung machines,” Saturday, Oct. 23, from 11 a.m. to noon in the Allen Memorial Medical Library’s Ford Auditorium.
The Kay-Cross Oxygenator, a largely forgotten medical technology, played a crucial role in the development of open heart surgery and the establishment of advanced cardiac surgical departments across the U.S. during the 1950s through the 1970s. The Kay-Cross Oxygenator was developed by an interdisciplinary team of surgeons, physiologists, engineers, fabricators and technicians coordinated by cardiothoracic surgeons Earle B. Kay and Frederick S. Cross at St. Luke’s Hospital in Cleveland.
Members of the community can learn more about the Kay-Cross Oxygenator from presenter Amanda L. Mahoney, chief curator of the Dittrick Medical History Center.