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Charles Kelman among National Inventors Hall of Fame inductees
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WASHINGTON — The National Inventors Hall of Fame announced that Charles Kelman, MD, is among the next group of innovators to be inducted into its ranks. The 2004 class will be inducted on May 1 in Akron, Ohio, according to the organization.
Dr. Kelman will be honored for his work in introducing “accessible cataract eye surgery,” the organization announced in a press release. Dr. Kelman will share the honor with others in the medical industry including the developers of insulin for diabetics, the men who isolated and identified HIV, the inventor of the heart-lung machine and the developer of a blood counter. Other inductees this year outside the field of medicine include the inventors of super glue, the global positioning system, food preservation techniques, the sewing machine, suspension bridges and modern sugar refining.
In its biography of Dr. Kelman, the organization notes that he “developed the procedure and the instruments for phacoemulsification, the preferred surgical procedure for removing cataracts.” The bio points out that Dr. Kelman’s procedure turned a procedure requiring a 10-day hospital stay into one performed on an outpatient basis.