Posted by
Board Certified M.D. on Thursday, May 08, 2008 2:28:45 PM
If you listen too Michelle Ob-bomb-ma you would never believe that Corporate America and Capitalistic America could cultivate a success story like this because will Life's bar is too high and the Bar of disease is event higher. This is the story of Medtronics a Medical Device Company with its headquarters in Minneapolis which employs 34,000 worldwide. Its flagship invention was the the Portable Pacemaker, and a multitude of other neical devices including Syncrodmed Pump for Intrathecal management of Spasticity caused by Stokes, Brain Injury, Cerebral Palsy and Spinal Cord Injury. It also invented Deep Brain Stimulation which has changed the lives for the better in Folks suffering from the devastation of Dystonia, Essential Tremor and Parkinson's Disease.
Earl Bakken, Medtronics founder was an Electrical Engineer who fixed electronics for a Minnesota Hospital his wife worked at in the 1940's and 50's. A Cardiac Surgeon friend of his wife challenged him to miniaturize a Cardiac Pacemaker which at the time was so impractical as it was the size of a Refrigerator. Bakken did it and revolutionized Cardiology and our current VP along with millions of people is the beneficiary of this advance. 100's of other products have come from this Man's company and have helped millions worldwide. Earl Bakken has created the Bakken Museum of Electricity which is an amazing Tudor styled mansion in Minneapolis. He has opened it to the Community so that it can be a source of education for young people. The staff runs programs in the summer for kids and Science Camps recreating Franklin's, Tesla, Edison experiments so that Kids can fall in love with Science and hopefully go on to become Engineers and Scientist. He has built the a cutting edge hospital on the big Island of Hawaii that fuses Eastern and Western State of the Art Medicine. An amazing Man and I think Bakken is a true Hippocrates and Leonardo Da Vinci of our Modern Era. Cleveland Clinic has a name one of their centers the "Bakken Heart-Brain Institute" on its Cleveland Campus in his honor. Additionally he has touched the Radio Industry something we all love!
- Bakken: Oh, yeah. And I have the Pavek Museum of Broadcasting in Minneapolis, which covers the history of radio. It covers radios from the turn of the century—the crystal detection set. Of course, crystal radio doesn’t require any power if you have local stations that are strong enough. I had a crystal set built into my bed so I could listen with the lights out after my parents thought I was asleep. I like old-time radio like Amos ‘n’ Andy and Fibber McGee and Molly.
During the war, it became known that I had a first-class, radio-telephone license that I had gotten when I was 17, and they automatically made me a radar instructor. I taught airborne, high-altitude bombing radar for three years.
At 82, Bakken is quick to point out that he's “still working” on projects ranging from the support of environmental research on the “Big Island” of Hawaii to the development of innovative healing techniques that partner sophisticated medical technology with traditional “high touch” healing methods like massage and acupuncture. He has helped the North Hawaii Community Hospital grow into a showcase for what he calls “blended medicine.”
“Most hospitals are warehouses for sick bodies,” he said. “This hospital is built for patients.”
Bakken's focus remains resolutely on the future. In the mid-1970s he founded the Bakken Library and Museum in Minneapolis to share with a younger generation his fascination with electricity. In the 1980s he helped launch the Pavek Museum of Broadcasting, located in St. Louis Park, Minn. Both museums share the goal of fostering interest in engineering as a career.
“We need so many engineers,” Bakken said. “We're getting short of them in the U.S. Other countries are beating us in training engineers. The Bakken and the Pavek train a lot of kids. We hope we can get some of them to [attend] the University.”
Bakken: It all comes back to Hawaii. There are seven organizations here in Hawaii that I’m very involved with, all attending to the health of the people. I have a community-health organization called Five Mountains Hawaii that targets a lot of local issues, such as drug and alcohol abuse. We’ve also begun to measure community health in every way you can think of, including automobile accidents.
Cooper: What are some of your findings?
Bakken: Well, for instance, we have a report that says students that don’t finish high school experience an extremely high death-rate in future years. If they do finish high school, those rates drop a little. If they get a year of college or trade school, those rates drop by half. And that’s U.S. figures, not just the Big Island. We try hard to encourage parents to be sure their children get at least 13 years of schooling. Somehow it awakens the child’s brain to look at life more positively.
Bakken represents the potential of the American people and what is so great about our Capitalistic Democratic Republic that Michelle Oh-no-mama thinks is so awful and unfair...."cuz people gotta get over the setbacks, pick themselves up after falling down and jump hurdles" of life? I bet she would never have been a successful Olympic athlete with a negative and bitter laced vision like hers. She prospered during the Reagan Era and guess it was 8 years of Clinton who screwed things up if the present is so bleak as Bush's economic policies are better than Clintons? Cheers