CME INDIA Presentation by ⚜ Dr. M. Gowri Sankar, MD, Senior Assistant Professor, Dept. of General Medicine, Government Medical College and ESI Hospital, Coimbatore.
Today’s History Feature:
Prof. Dr. Jean Bernard
(May 26, 1907 – Apr 17, 2006)
💠French Physician
💠Father of Haematological Oncology
His contributions…
🔹Bernard studied medicine at Paris in 1926 and completed his laboratory training at the Pasteur Institute in 1929.
🔹He was professionally trained by Dr. Paul chevalier who was a leading haematologist in France during his period. He was the one who influenced him to become a haematologist.
🔹Then, Dr. Bernard became a Professor of Haematology and simultaneously he was also the Director of the Institute for leukaemia at the University of Paris.
🔹Initially, Dr. Bernard focussed his research on leukaemia. He was the first to describe the chemically induced leukaemia among industrial workers in 1950.
🔹He further demonstrated the toxic origin of leukaemia by injecting the chemical tar into the bone marrow of a rat and found that it caused leukaemia.
🔹By collaborating with Dr. Marcel Bessis, he developed Exchange Blood Transfusion as a therapy for childhood leukaemia.
🔹In 1962, Dr. Bernard successfully reached the high remission rate and did the first cure of Acute Promyelocytic Leukaemia by providing the drug called Daunorubicin.
🔹Moreover, he was the first to cure the Chronic Myeloid Leukaemia by using the drug Busulfan on a 3 years old child.
🔹By associating with Dr. Jean Pierre Soulier, he described the Bernard-Soulier syndrome upon testing on a boy with prolonged bleeding post tooth extraction. He was the first to recognise the Hereditary Bleeding Disorder.
🔹In addition, he published around 14 textbooks and monographs on Haematology.
🔹Apart from all the above, he was a creative writer, thinker and a man of poetry as well as literature. He published three volumes of Poetry and around 20 books on Medical Ethics and Philosophy.
A Day to Commemorate…
The Pope of Haematology
Prof. Dr. Jean Bernard 🙏🏼
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Great soul, humble regards to Dr Jean Bernard, many lives saved and will be saved by his inventions. 💐💐🙏🏽🙏🏽