5. Cardiopulmonary Catheterization
In 1956, Dr. Andre Cournand and Dr. Dickinson Richards at Columbia University’s College of Physicians and Surgeons won the Nobel Prize for their development of cardiac catheterization, a technique commonly used to diagnose heart and lung diseases. In 1929, German scientist Werner Forssmann inserted a catheter into his own forearm to his right atrium and took an X-ray of it, which led Cournand and Richards to open up the first catheterization lab at Bellevue Hospital.
The two doctors were able to more easily diagnose patients with diseases of the heart muscle, valves, or coronary arteries, which led to further advances in cardiac research.