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40 Years of Excellence: Recognizing the Founders of SCCMAs the Society of Critical Care Medicine (SCCM) commemorates its 40th year of advancing multiprofessional intensive care through excellence in patient care, education, research and advocacy, it is a time to reflect on the organization’s founders. Their leadership has played a vital role in the Society’s legacy. Look to Critical Connections for highlights on the Society’s history and its founders.
Max Harry Weil, MD, PhD, ScD (Hon), FCCM, who led the Society from 1970 to 1972 as its first president, is a pioneer in the field, with contributions ranging from helping to propose the term critical care to introducing computer techniques for patient monitoring.
Born in Baden, Switzerland, Weil received his medical degree from the State University of New York and completed his residency in internal medicine at the University of Minnesota Hospital. He earned his PhD in medicine/physiology from the University of Minnesota Graduate School with fellowship training in cardiology and cardiovascular physiology at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota.
As a cardiologist in the early 1950s, Weil began research on the mechanism of shock with early studies on the hemodynamic effects of endotoxin and the relationships of endotoxin shock with other types of shock. “I was very much interested in life-threatening diseases very early in my career, especially heart attacks and strokes,” he said. With his colleague, Herbert Shubin, MD, Weil established a four-bed “shock ward” at Los Angeles County General Hospital to provide for continuous monitoring of seriously ill cardiology and postsurgical patients.
Weil also developed a well-equipped and well-staffed cardiac catheterization laboratory and monitoring facility for surgical patients, and he designed a clinical physiology unit for hemodynamic and metabolic studies on patients, especially those in shock.
After joining the faculty at the University of Southern California in 1959, he developed facilities and techniques for application of the digital computer to the study and management of critically ill patients. Among his many accomplishments was the introduction of computer techniques for patient monitoring in 1963, which became the first operational demonstration of digital computer use for the routine care of patients in the United States.
Weil and his colleagues proposed the term critical care in the early 1960s from the concept that life-endangered patients, the “critically ill,” would have a better chance of survival if minute-to-minute monitoring and care, based on objective measurements, were provided by highly trained physicians and nurses in emergency departments and special care units, including intensive care, coronary care and postoperative care units. His work and interest in saving the lives of critically ill patients later would lead him to become one of the founders of the Society of Critical Care Medicine.
Weil still serves as honorary chairman of the Weil Institute of Critical Care Medicine. The institute, which Weil co-founded, is a nonprofit research and education center dedicated to saving lives, and is the first phase of an envisioned medical and science park.
Weil has authored or co-authored more than 400 journal articles, 125 book chapters and 550 abstracts, as well as other publications. He has held positions on numerous editorial boards, including serving as a senior editor for Critical Care Medicine, and he reviews submissions for an impressive number of journals.
In 1994, Weil stated: “I perceive that the most consistent pursuits of successful innovators and leaders in medicine, as in all endeavors, come from aspirations generated by serendipitous dreams rather than by hope or fate alone; from the excitement with which the dreamer attracts collaborators who have prepared minds and skillful hands; they join talents and destinies to convert the dream to expert plans.” These words have applied to Weil throughout his remarkable career. He is an innovator and a great leader in medicine. His dream of saving lives has advanced the field of critical care and paved the way for others to further his research.
Highlights of the First Decade
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