Gerald M. Lawrie

Gerald Murray Lawrie
Born	15 October 1945 (1945-10-15) (age 66) 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]

Biography

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]

Publications

• Lawrie GM. Ensuring proper leaflet apposition during mitral valve repair. J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 2008 Jan;135(1):228; author reply 228-9. PMID: 18179958
• Nagueh SF, Buergler JM, Quinones MA, Spencer WH 3rd, Lawrie GM. Outcome of surgical myectomy after unsuccessful alcohol septal ablation for the treatment of patients with hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy. J Am Coll Cardiol. 2007 Aug 21;50(8):795-8. PMID: 17707185
• Lawrie GM. Mitral valve: toward complete repairability. Surg Technol Int. 2006;15:189-97. PMID: 17029176
• Lawrie GM, Earle EA, Earle NR. Feasibility and intermediate term outcome of repair of prolapsing anterior mitral leaflets with artificial chordal replacement in 152 patients. Ann Thorac Surg. 2006 Mar;81(3):849-56; discussion 856. PMID: 16488683
• Talwalkar NG, Earle NR, Earle EA, Lawrie GM. Mitral valve repair in patients with low left ventricular ejection fractions: early and late results. Chest. 2004 Sep;126(3):709-15. PMID: 15364746

References

1. ^ ^{a b} KHOU Staff (4 March 2009). "More About Dr. Gerald Lawrie". KHOU. http://www.khou.com/news/health/stories/khou090304_mp_dr-gerald-lawrie.3c263f9.html. 
2. ^ Gerald Lawrie MD
3. ^ "Dr. Gerald Lawrie is awarded prestigious DeBakey Endowed Chair". methodisthealth.com. http://www.methodisthealth.com/tmhs/newsItem.do?channelId=-1073829366&contentId=215615&contentType=NEWS_CONTENT_TYPE. Retrieved 2009–03–07. 

Persondata
Name	Lawrie, Gerald M.
Alternative names
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Date of birth	15 October 1945
Place of birth	Murwillumbah, New South Wales, Australia
Date of death
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