Dr. Redmond P. Burke (born November 4, 1958) is a congenital heart surgeon, software developer, author, and founder of The Congenital Heart Institute at Miami Children’s Hospital, and Arnold Palmer Hospital, in Miami and Orlando Florida. He starred in the ABC pilot television show The Miracle Workers, a Dreamworks SKG and Renegade 83 production.
Biography
editRedmond Burke was born in Honolulu, Hawaii [1] to a US Navy flight navigator, Redmond Joseph Burke, and his wife Claire Lorraine Burke, both from San Francisco, California. He is married to Kim Burke, and they have three daughters.
Burke and his three younger sisters grew up in Cupertino, California. He was educated in public schools - John F. Kennedy Junior High School, and Monta Vista High School, where he co-captained the varsity wrestling and Championship football teams, and won the Outstanding Wrestler award at the Central Coast Section Championships in 1976.[2] Influential coaches included Patrick Lovell, and Duane “Buck” Shore.
College 1976-1980
editAccepted at Yale, Brown and Dartmouth Universities, he attended Stanford University, majoring in Human Biology. He walked on and made the Varsity Football Team as a freshman under NFL Hall of Fame Coach Jack Christiansen. He co-captained the Varsity Rugby Team, touring New Zealand and Canada, where he played wing forward. He graduated with Honors and Distinction, with election to the Phi Beta Kappa honor society. Distinguished classmates included Pete Higgins, an executive at Microsoft, and Timothy Draper, founder of the venture firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson. Notable professors included Nobel Laureates Linus C. Pauling (Chemistry, 1954 and Peace, 1962) and Arthur L. Schawlow (Physics, 1981).
Medical School 1980-1984
editBurke attended medical school at Harvard University from 1980 to 1984. Influential instructors included Hardy Hendren, Paul Buttenweiser and Judah Folkman, who often asked students, “what was your last original idea?”
General Surgery Training 1985-1989
editRedmond was selected for General Surgical Residency Training at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital, under then Surgeon in Chief, John A. Mannick MD, Mosely Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School. The Brigham training philosophy was “see one, do one, teach one.” Notable instructors included Nobel Prize Winner Joseph Murray, who performed the world’s first kidney transplant. In 1989, after completing his General Surgery training at the Brigham, and in preparation for his cardiac training, Burke spent a year as a research fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in the Spectroscopy Laboratory, under Michael S. Feld, PhD. He investigated the use of laser induced tissue fluorescence spectroscopy to diagnose rejection in transplanted cardiac tissue.
Cardiothoracic Surgery Training 1990-1992
editBurke was selected for Cardiac Surgery Training at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital. The program had a history of aggressive innovation, beginning with the pioneering work of Dwight Harken, who performed the first successful open heart surgeries, removing shell fragments from the hearts of WWII soldiers. Jack Collins, Lawrence Cohn, and David Sugarbaker, taught their Brigham residents precise techniques for each operation.
Congenital Heart Surgery Training 1992
editBurke spent six months as the Chief Resident in Pediatric Cardiac Surgery under Professor Aldo Castaneda, and attending surgeons, Richard Jonas, John Mayer, and Frank Hanley. When Dr Hanley accepted the position of Chief of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery at the University of California in San Francisco, the group offered Burke his position, and he joined the Boston Children’s Hospital attending staff in 1992, becoming an Instructor in Surgery at the Harvard Medical School.
Boston Children’s Hospital 1992-1995
editCastaneda encouraged Burke to develop a research interest. He explored the possibility of using endoscopic surgical techniques for congenital heart surgery, designing instruments and techniques in the laboratory. He began clinical applications in 1993, subsequently performing a series of surgical firsts, including the world’s first endoscopic vascular ring division, diaphragm placation, and thoracic duct ligation. Burke and Craig Lillehei, an attending pediatric surgeon, also performed the first three pediatric Heart-Lung Transplantations in New England, with the help of colleagues from the Brigham and Women’s Hospital including Malcolm Decamp, and Sari Aranki.. In early 1995, Dr Castaneda retired, and Burke was invited to interview for a position as Chief of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery at Miami Children’s Hospital in Miami, Florida.
| ACHIEVEMENTS IN PEDIATRIC CARDIAC SURGERY | PIONEERED BY/ INSTITUTION | REFERENCE SOURCE |
|---|---|---|
| First Minimally Invasive Repair of Patent Ductus Arteriosus in the United States
1993 |
Burke
at Boston Children’s Hospital |
Burke RP, Wernovsky G, van der Velde M, Hansen D, Castaneda AR: Video-assisted thoracoscopic surgery for congenital heart disease. J Thorac Cardiovasc Surg. 1995 Mar;109(3):499-507; discussion 508 |
| World’s First Video-Assisted Thoracoscopic Vascular Ring Division
1993 |
Burke
at Boston Children’s Hospital |
|
| World’s first video-assisted thoracoscopic thoracic duct ligation
1994 |
Burke
at Boston Children’s Hospital |
Mihalka J, Burrows FA, Burke RP, Javorski JJ: One-lung ventilation during video-assisted thoracoscopic ligation of a thoracic duct in a three-year-old child. J Cardiothorac Vasc Anesth. 1994 Oct;8(5):559-62 |
Miami Children’s Hospital 1995
editAt the age of 36, Burke became the Chief of Pediatric Cardiovascular Surgery at Miami Children’s Hospital. Building on lessons learned in Boston and Silicon Valley, his program was designed around two key principles: 1. Reduce the trauma of care for each patient over their lifetime. 2. Use information technology to improve medical outcomes.
Reducing Surgical Trauma
editIn an effort to reduce cumulative therapeutic trauma, the Miami team unified the efforts of cardiac surgeons and interventional cardiologists to reduce therapeutic trauma, attempting to develop less invasive treatments for a broad range of congenital heart defects. Burke and Zahn published a series of unique hybrid approaches, where the surgeons operated in the catheterization laboratory, and the cardiologists performed interventions in the operating room. Many of these procedures utilized the video assisted thoracoscopic techniques Burke developed in Boston.{Readers digest, December, 1998} Burke and associate surgeon Robert Hannan worked with their Director of Perfusion, Jorge W. Ojito, to develop less traumatic cardiopulmonary bypass technique. They also designed a streamlined Cardiopulmonary Support circuit, allowing critically ill patients to be transported by plane, helicopter or ambulance over great distances on full heart lung bypass.
Information Technology
editWhen Burke arrived in Miami in 1995, medical information technology was limited. He hired Jeffrey A. White to act as a technology advisor, working with the heart team to find and develop novel applications of information technology to improve medical outcomes. This collaboration resulted in the first relational database for congenital heart surgery, the first web based information system for a medical team, and the first web based reporting of medical outcomes in real time.
| ACHIEVEMENTS | PIONEERED BY/ INSTITUTION | REFERENCE |
|---|---|---|
| First Relational Congenital Heart Database
1995 |
Burke, Jacobs J, Jacobs H, and White
at Miami Children's Hospital |
CardioAccess.com |
| World’s First Palm Application for Pediatric Heart Surgery
2001 |
White and Burke
at Miami Children's Hospital |
Bender, JP. “Miami Children's Hospital introduces new technology.” South Florida Business Journal 20 Apr 2001 The New York Times |
| World’s First Internet Based Information Management System for a Congenital Heart Team
2002 |
White and Burke
At Miami Children’s Hospital |
Herper, M. "Saving Lives With PDAs." Forbes 23 Apr 02 |
| First Real Time Web based Medical Outcomes Reporting
2002 |
Burke, White and Walsh
At Miami Children’s Hospital |
pediatricheartsurgery.com |
| First Voice Recognition Database for an Operating Room
2006 |
Burke and White
At Miami Children’s Hospital |
Robb, Drew. “Now We’re Talking: Speech technologies are moving far beyond call centers.” Computerworld 02 Oct 06 |
The Congenital Heart Institute
editIn 2002, the Arnold Palmer Hospital in Orlando, Florida lost their congenital heart program. Burke initiated meetings with administrator Janet Livingstone, CEO John Hillenmeyer, and Medical Director Mark Swanson, proposing that the Miami Children’s Cardiac Team help rebuild the Arnold Palmer Heart Program. The Congenital Heart Institute at Miami Children’s Hospital and Arnold Palmer Hospital was created, with Redmond Burke and Evan Zahn acting as Co-Directors.
Television
editBurke was cast as the host of the ABC network television reality program The Miracle Workers, which first aired March 6, 2006. The program followed patients through complex medical treatments, showing the technical and emotional aspects of modern medical care. The show strove to match people with severely debilitating illnesses with elite doctors and innovative treatments that are not widely available. Critics questioned the ethics of a show that "give out good medicine as a prize." [3]
Burke has appeared on CNN (1996), Good Morning America (1997, 2006), The Today Show (1997), CNN Entertainment (1996), Extra (2006) and Entertainment Tonight (1996) to describe novel medical achievements.
Honors
editBlue Angels Flight
Best Doctors in America
Who’s Who in America
Valor Award, American Diabetes Association
External Links
editpediatricheartsurgery.com
CardioAccess.com
Teges.com
Miami Children's Hospital