JD Mortensen M.D.

JD Mortensen, M.D. 1920 ~ 2005 JD Mortensen, 84, died on June 10, 2005 in Salt Lake of natural causes related to age and multiple lingering infirmities. JD was born in Thatcher, Arizona, the first of five children of Martin and Bearl Naegle Mortensen. His boyhood years were filled with a rich variety of outdoor, academic and athletic pursuits. As a boxer, he fought twice for the middle weight Golden Gloves championship of Arizona. He married Sarah Owens in 1942 in the Mesa Arizona temple. Their union produced nine children. Sarah died in 1969. He later married Eva Tanner Davis in the Salt Lake Temple. JD graduated from Arizona State University in 1942 and from the University of Southern California Medical School in 1946, at which time he was commissioned as an officer in the U.S. Army. He served as a physician in the military until his honorable discharge as a Captain in 1949. He thereafter served a thoracic and cardiovascular surgical fellowship at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. Dr. Mortensen practiced thoracic and cardiovascular surgery in Salt Lake City on the staffs of the Rumel Chest Clinic, LDS Hospital, and Primary Children's Hospital for 19 years (1955 - 74) performing more than 2,000 cardiovascular operations. He introduced open heart surgery and major vascular surgery at the LDS and Primary Children's Hospitals and performed the first of more than 20 different types of surgery in these fields. He served on the clinical faculty of the University of Utah College of Medicine for 29 years (1955 - 1984) and served as director of surgical research laboratories at LDS Hospital (1955- 74), Primary Children's Hospital (1968-72), and UBTL Division of the University of Utah Research Institute (1974-84), and as consultant in surgical research at UBTL, Inc., Deseret Research Company and also served as vice president, chief medical and technical officer at CardioPulmonics, Inc. He also served as president, CEO and chief medical and technical officer (and founder) of Oxygenator Technology Development, Inc. He was a guest reviewer for several major scientific journals. After retiring from active clinical surgery in 1974, Dr. Mortensen engaged in research activities involving cardiopulmonary bypass, total mechanical substitution for heart and lungs, artificial lung, vascular prostheses and morphometry of human pulmonary airways. He was a collaborating scientist on several major thoracic and cardiovascular research projects. He was an innovative scientist, developing more than 20 surgical devices and instruments and being granted 12 patents on medical products. Dr. Mortensen authored more than 200 published scientific papers, abstracts and technical reports. He made presentations concerning his intravenous pulmonary blood gas exchange device (IVOX) at scientific gatherings in Belgium, France, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Greece, Holland, Japan, Puerto Rico, Czechoslovakia and England, as well as in Montreal, Washington D.C., Chicago, San Francisco and San Diego. In 2000, the Deseret Foundation conferred upon him the Legacy of Life Scientific Achievement Award. In 1996 he received the Utah State Days of 47 Pioneers of Progress Award and in 1992 he received the Utah Governor's Medal for Science and Technology Achievement. Continued on next column.