healthcare careers

Blood pumps, pacemakers and anesthesia monitors were all developed in Minnesota. Our medical device industry enjoys both a distinguished past and a bright future.

Minnesota Medical Devices: A 50-Year History of Success

"Nothing succeeds like success." The 50-year history of Minnesota's medical device industry offers proof of that old saying. In 1952, Dr. C. Walton Lillehei performed the world's first successful open-heart surgery. By 1955, he and his team were performing 40 of the surgeries each year.

Lillehei asked Earl Bakken, a University of Minnesota colleague, to develop a small, portable pacemaker. The success of that device in 1958 led to the founding of Medtronic. The company estimates that its medical devices now benefit more than 2.5 million patients each year. Fortune magazine named Medtronic one of the "best companies to work for in 2004," offering careers in engineering and software development as well as in biomedical specialties. For more information on Medtronic, visit its Web site at www.medtronic.com.

Lillehei went on to train more than 150 cardiac surgeons, and to become director of medical affairs for St. Jude Medical, Inc. Founded in 1976 as a heart valve company, St. Jude now manufactures a range of products for cardiac rhythm management. St. Jude's 6,000 employees include IT managers, business analysts and quality assurance personnel, as well as clinicians. For more information, visit St. Jude's Web site at www.sjm.com.

Inventing Devices and Creating Entrepreneurs

In addition to creating new medical devices, the large companies like Medtronic and St. Jude Medical also generate new products and services. Acumen Healthcare Solutions, headquartered in Plymouth, produces medical software that supports clients like St. Jude, which performs clinical trials at sites around the world. Acumen's software allows data to be electronically recorded and transmitted via the Internet to the companies whose medical products are being tested. The system eliminates the need for filling out and mailing paper forms, reducing labor costs and the chance of errors from bad handwriting.

On the other side of the Twin Cities metro, Diasorin, located in Stillwater, makes reagents and assembles them into systems that test for bone density, hepatitis and blood-borne pathogens.

Medical Alley: A to Z

Thanks to the successes of Lillehei, Bakken and others, the Twin Cities now has companies ranging from Acist Medical Systems to Zimmer Spine. Medical Alley, the trade association founded in 1984 to support Minnesota's healthcare industry, has more than 300 companies employing nearly 250,000 people. Visit Medical Alley's Web site at www.medicalalley.org.

The University of Minnesota's biomedical and bioscience Web site contains interesting information on Minnesota's distinguished history and bright future in medical devices. The site list Minnesota's biomedical "firsts," from open-heart surgery to the drug infusion pump and from artificial blood to the anesthesia monitor. (Did you know that Charles Lindbergh was on the cover of Time magazine for his invention of an organ perfusion device?) Visit the Web site at www.mbbnet.umn.edu.