Person

Vineberg, Arthur (Arthur Martin), 1903-1988

1903-1988

Dr. Arthur Vineberg was born in Montreal in 1903 and died in 1988. He graduated from McGill University in 1928, earning his Ph.D. in experimental physiology in 1933 at the same institution. In 1942, he married Ann Porter Buckley and the same year was sent on active military service with the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps. After the war, back at the Royal Victoria Hospital and McGill University, he became senior cardiac surgeon at the R.V.H. and lecturer in the Faculty of Medicine of McGill University. He also been associated with many other Montreal medical institutions. Founder of the surgical units at the veterans hospital in Ste. Anne de Bellevue and the Montreal Military Hospital, Vineberg founded and co-founded the cardiac surgical departments at the Sir Mortimer B. Davis Jewish General Hospital, the Institut de cardiologie de Montréal and at the Royal Victoria Hospital. He was also involved in founding of Québec Heart Foundation. Vineberg pioneered surgery for coronary artery disease in developing a controversial procedure, which consisted of implanting the left mammary artery into the heart's left ventricle, leading to myocardial revascularization. This was done on an experimental basis in 1946 and the first clinical procedure was carried out at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal in 1950. The "Vineberg Procedure" or "Vineberg Operation" as it came to be called brought him awards and much renown in the medical world and contributed to modern medical techniques. In 1986 he became a Companion of the Order of Canada. A persistent researcher until his death, he published innumerable research papers but also strove to make the general public more aware of cardiac related health issues, publishing two books, How to Live with your Heart: The Family Guide to Heart Health in 1975 and Myocardial Revascularization by Arterial/Ventricular Implants in 1982.