1931-2006

Biography

Seymour Furman was born in the Bronx, New York and he and his family moved to Brooklyn where they lived thereafter. He was educated at Stuyvesant High School, New York University and the State University of New York College of Medicine, Downstate (Brooklyn) from which he graduated in 1955. He was an intern and a resident in general surgery at Montefiore Hospital in the Bronx between 1955 and 1960 and served as a surgeon in the United States Navy Medical Corps 1960-1962 at the Naval Hospital at Camp Lejeune, NC (a Marine Corps base). During 1962-1963 he was a Thoracic Surgical Resident at the Baylor University affiliated hospitals in Houston, TX. Thereafter he returned to Montefiore as a staff surgeon with progressive emphasis on pacemaker implantation.

He and Evelyn Katz were married June 1, 1957 and lived together until her death in 2002, having had three children. During 1957-1958 he spent a year in the Montefiore Surgical Research Laboratory and also learned the techniques of cardiac catheterization, where he participated in the establishment of the open heart program and devised the technique of transvenous, endocardial right ventricular pacing, initially using a stimulating catheter electrode of his own design. The technique was demonstrated to John B. Schwedel MD, the Chief of Cardiology, who recognized its capability and fostered it in patients. July 16, 1958 endocardial pacing was initially and successfully used for two hours in a patient with complete heart block, undergoing colon resection. The second patient was paced between August 18, 1958 until November 21, 1958 and thereafter survived for another three years.

Following return from the Navy he progressively directed the pacemaker program at Montefiore and did so until 1994 when he retired from active surgery because of illness. He had received research support from the National Institutes of Health for many years. In 1967 he organized and chaired a conference under the auspices of the New York Academy of Sciences, "Advances in Cardiac Pacing" and edited its proceedings. This conference was later recognized as the Second World Symposium on Cardiac Pacing. His clinical career has always been at Montefiore Medical Center and academic career at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine where he eventually became Professor of Medicine and Surgery. In 1977 he founded the journal Pacing and Clinical Electrophysiology (PACE) which appeared initially in 1978 and continues in publication under his editorial stewardship. In 1979 he joined with J. Warren Harthorne, Dryden Morse and Victor Parsonnet to found the North American Society of Pacing and Electrophysiology (NASPE) of which he became the second president.

NASPE Founders (from left)

Dryden Morse, Seymour Furman, J. Warren Harthorne, Victor Parsonnet

Among his other scientific contributions were the earliest pacemaker clinics of 1958, strength duration curves of human endocardial stimulation, the relation of electrode size to stimulation threshold, delineation of the sensed characteristics of the endocardial electrogram, the virtual electrode hypothesis of stimulation, demonstration that mercury-zinc cells destroy pacemaker circuitry, and that low voltage, abbreviated pulse duration stimulation prolongs pulse generator longevity, transtelephonic monitoring of pacemaker function, and database and statistical analysis of patient and hardware survival. With Bilitch and Parsonnet and he founded a twenty year national registry of pulse generator function between 1974 and 1994. He published over 400 manuscripts and book chapters and over 100 editorials in PACE, over 800 abstracts and 1000 oral presentations. In 1970 he and Doris Escher were coauthors of the first American book on cardiac pacing, "Principles and Techniques of Cardiac Pacing" and in 1989 he was co-author of "A Practice of Cardiac Pacing" which was published in three successive editions.

In 1984 he founded an affiliate of NASPE, NASPExAM to establish an examination process for the certification of physicians and Allied Professionals as having special competency in cardiac pacing and implantable defibrillation and for Allied Professionals in Clinical Cardiac Electrophysiology. He chaired this effort through 1998. In 1995 he founded an Oral History effort within NASPE which has continued to the present, collecting oral interviews, presenting a History Theater at the NASPE Annual Scientific Sessions and at the Twelfth World Symposium on Cardiac Pacing and Electrophysiology and editing and operating a history website, Electricity and the Heart (www.ep-history.org) which had been begun with a two year grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. During 2003 he remains in clinical practice, editing PACE and continues direction of the NASPE History Project.

Post script: Dr. Furman, a dear mentor, colleague and friend – a true legend in his time - remained an active physician until his death on February 20, 2006. The cause of death was complications of cardiovascular disease.

Interview Excerpts

Dr. Furman's early experiences with cardiac catheterization and pacing (7:58 sec; Real Audio)

Learning cardiac catheterization under the direction of Doris J.J. Escher (6:83 sec; Real Audio)

Dr. Furman's first paced patient (13:61 sec; Real Audio)

Views on pacing in the late 1950s (2:34 sec; Real Audio)

Pacing Patient #2 (7:10 sec; Real Audio)

Pacing Patient #2 (continued) (5:09 sec; Real Audio)

Excerpted from this interview: (Also featuring Evelyn Furman)
Interviewer: Victor Parsonnet
Date: Aprill 11, 2001
Place: Bronx, New York
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