Tofy Mussivand
Tofy Mussivand is an Iranian-Canadian medical engineer of Kurdish ancestry who invented an Artificial Cardiac Pump, a device that pumps blood and takes over the function of breathing during a heart surgery.
He is currently Professor of Surgery and Engineering at the University of Ottawa and Carleton University; Chair and Director, Cardiovascular Devices Division of the University of Ottawa Heart Institute ; and Medical Devices Program of both the University of Ottawa and Carleton University. He is an honorary member of the Iranian Academy of Medical Sciences.
Mussivand was born to Kurdish parents in the village of Varkaneh in Hamedan. His father was an Iraqi Kurd. Before leaving Varkaneh to study at Tehran, he was a goat herder. He studied engineering at Tehran University and University of Alberta and fled Iran in 1957. He has worked for the Canadian government, crown corporations, and the private sector. Mussivand went on to receive his doctorate in Medical Engineering and Medical Sciences at the University of Akron and Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine. Thereafter, Mussivand joined the Cleveland Clinic Hospital and Research Foundation. In 1989, Mussivand returned to Canada.
The Artificial Cardiac Pump temporarily takes over the function of breathing and pumping blood for a patient. It has two parts, the pump and the aerator. Cardiac pumps are most often used in heart surgery, so that a patient's heart can be disconnected from the body for longer than the twenty minutes or so it takes for a prepared patient to die.
