| Gerald Murray Lawrie | |
|---|---|
| Born | 15 October 1945 Murwillumbah, New South Wales, Australia |
| Alma mater | University of Sydney |
Gerald Murray Lawrie, M. D. (born 15 October 1945 in Murwillumbah, New South Wales, Australia) is a world-renowned American heart surgeon and pioneer in the surgical treatment of valvular heart disease.[1]
Gerald Murray Lawrie was born in 1945 in Murwillumbah, Australia, a country town with a population of 15,000. He grew up in Sydney, Australia, attended The Scots College and graduated from The University of Sydney Medical School in 1969. He was a Commonwealth Scholarship holder throughout medical school and as an undergraduate was awarded the James McRae Yeates Prize for Clinical Surgery. He continued his surgical education in the teaching hospitals of the University of New South Wales, Australia between 1969 and 1972 when he left for a year of post- graduate education in England. This included five months at the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences of the Royal College of Surgeons in London, England. He returned to Australia in 1973 and completed his residency training in thoracic and cardiovascular surgery in Sydney at his previous teaching hospitals. During this period, Dr. Michael E. DeBakey was a visiting professor in Sydney and invited Dr. Lawrie to spend a year with him in Houston, Texas, USA.
Between 1974 and 1975, Dr. Lawrie completed a Cardiovascular Fellowship at Baylor College of Medicine with Dr. DeBakey and was invited to join his personal staff as an associate surgeon as well as the Department of Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine. In this capacity he worked with Dr. DeBakey on a daily basis for over 20 years and accumulated a very extensive experience in the surgical management of end-stage and complex cardiovascular disease. During this time he participated in the surgical care of many notable figures such as the Shah of Iran, the President of Turkey, the King of Belgium, and a number of other royal figures. He helped set up cardiovascular surgery programs in Saudi Arabia and Indonesia. He was also actively involved in student and resident teaching and carried out extensive research in cardiovascular surgery.
In early 1994, he spent 3 months in Glasgow, Scotland, setting up a cardiac surgery program at a new 300 million dollar medical center for Health Care International. This entity was formed by Harvard Medical School-based physicians with major financial support from Harvard University. He then returned to Houston to continue his career at Baylor College of Medicine.
In 1997, he became a Clinical Professor of Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine, and with many of his colleagues in Houston, formed Texas Surgical Associates, Houston's largest single specialty group of cardiovascular surgeons. Since then he has continued to pursue a very active clinical practice while at the same time remaining productive in teaching and research.[2]
On 14 August 2007, Dr. Lawrie performed the first mitral vale repair using the daVinci robotic surgical system using an advanced technique called the American Correction.[1]
In 2008, he was appointed the Methodist Hospital Michael E. Debakey Professor of Cardiac Surgery, an endowed professorship[3]