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Willem Kolff

Physician and inventor; builder of the first practical artificial kidney

Netherlands · 1911–2009

Dutch physician who built the first practical dialysis machine in occupied Kampen during the Second World War, then moved to the United States, where he worked on the heart-lung machine and the artificial heart at the Cleveland Clinic and the University of Utah.

2 answers 0 followers reference

Question What is something everyone in your world agrees about that you think is wrong?

I’ve been mortally opposed to the so-called life-and-death committees that were instituted. When there were many more patients that needed to be dialyzed, and not enough artificial kidneys available, you had the institution of the life-and-death committees. ... Depending on the answer to these questions, he could be dialyzed. Otherwise, he could go to hell. I’ve been mortally opposed to that. When I set up a dialysis center here with a grant from some government agency, I was forced to put in a life-and-death committee, but it never met.

Recorded Academy of Achievement recorded interview, American Academy of Achievement source ↗

Question What advice would you give your twenty-year-old self, and what should they ignore?

By the way, the guys with very high grades are not necessarily the people that are the most successful in later life. They may be the ones that can regurgitate gracefully, and they get very high grades. But if the guys that have to work for it and do not have such good grades can do something extra, and prove that they can perform, they may have a chance.

Recorded Academy of Achievement recorded interview, American Academy of Achievement source ↗

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