Harvey Feigenbaum: A Retrospective
[Tribute to the founding Editor]
Weyman, Arthur E. MD, FASE
From the Cardiac Ultrasound Laboratory, Boston, Massachusetts.
This issue of the Journal of the American Society of Echocardiography (JASE) marks the end of an era. This is the first issue in the 20 years of the Journal’s existence to have not been edited by its founder and only editor-in-chief: Harvey Feigenbaum. At such a point it is appropriate to look back and reflect on Harvey’s enormous contributions to the JASE and to the field of echocardiography. No individual has played a more fundamental role in the evolution of our profession. His contributions as pioneer, innovator, investigator, teacher, mentor, founder and first president of the American Society of Echocardiography (ASE), and the Journal’s first and only editor are without parallel. Therefore, we devote a portion of this issue to pay tribute to this outstanding individual and his distinguished career.
It is said that some people look at a swamp and see a magic kingdom. Harvey looked at a reflection from the back wall of his heart and saw the potential for what has become the most widely used cardiac imaging technique in the world. In this issue we highlight several of the areas of echocardiography that Harvey pioneered–pericardial effusion, left ventricular function, stress echocardiography, and digital echocardiography–describing his early contributions and tracing the evolution of these lines of research to the present–a small token of appreciation.
