Volume 25, Issue 9 pp. 871-876
Special Interest Article

Malignant hyperthermia in the early days of pediatric anesthesia: an interview with anesthesiology pioneer, Dr. John F. Ryan

Michael R. King

Michael R. King

Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care & Pain Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

Search for more papers by this author
Paul G. Firth

Paul G. Firth

Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care & Pain Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

Department of Anesthesia, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Boston, MA, USA

Search for more papers by this author
Myron Yaster

Myron Yaster

Departments of Anesthesiology, Critical Care Medicine, and Pediatrics, The Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA

Search for more papers by this author
Zulfiqar Ahmed

Zulfiqar Ahmed

Wayne State University School of Medicine, Detroit, MI, USA

Anesthesia Associates of Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor, MI, USA

Search for more papers by this author
Christine L. Mai

Corresponding Author

Christine L. Mai

Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care & Pain Medicine, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

Department of Anesthesia, Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary, Boston, MA, USA

Correspondence

Christine L. Mai, Department of Anesthesia, Critical Care Medicine & Pain Medicine; Massachusetts General Hospital, 55 Fruit Street, Boston, MA 02114, USA

Email: [email protected]

Search for more papers by this author
First published: 03 June 2015
Citations: 3

Summary

Dr. John F. Ryan (1935 - ), Associate Professor of Anaesthesia at the Harvard Medical School, influenced the careers of hundreds of residents and fellows-in-training while instilling in them his core values of resilience, hard work, and integrity. His authoritative textbook, A Practice of Anesthesia for Infants and Children, remains as influential today as it did when first published decades ago. Although he had had many accomplishments, he identified his experiences caring for patients with malignant hyperthermia and characterizing the early discovery of this condition as his defining contribution to medicine. Based on a series of interviews with Dr. Ryan, this article reviews a remarkable career that coincides with the dawn of modern pediatric anesthetic practice.

The full text of this article hosted at iucr.org is unavailable due to technical difficulties.