The Heart Rhythm Foundation History Project is an ongoing effort to archive the contributions made in the fields of cardiac electrophysiology, management of cardiac arrhythmias, and cardiac stimulation. Because of the youth of the field, many of the contributors to its early years are still living; some are still active. Consequently, it is important to preserve materials and information essential to the history of field with the help of those who shaped that history.

In order to continue our efforts to create a complete record of the field, we encourage the donation of devices, both historic and current, scholarly articles and papers, graphics and photographs to the Heart Rhythm Foundation History Project for inclusion in our library. These donations will be catalogued and stored long-term for use in scholarly research and possible display.

For information, please contact Betsy Bogdansky, Director, Donor Relations at (202) 464-3454 or bbogdansky@HeartRhythmFoundation.org.

In 1995 the Heart Rhythm Society (then known as NASPE) established the History Committee to record the invention, creation and development of the three fields that are the basis of the Society’s efforts, namely cardiac pacing, clinical cardiac electrophysiology and implantable cardioversion-defibrillation.

While in some way each of the fields goes further back in history beyond the recent past, nevertheless each can be considered a development of the past fifty years. The first experimental cardiac pacing was undertaken in 1950, the major contributions of modern invasive cardiac electrophysiology during the 1960s and the first descriptions of the implantable defibrillator in 1970 and the first clinical application in 1980. Because of the relative youth of the field, many of the early contributors remain available to us to share their stories.