To help advance education in the respiratory therapy (RT) profession and honor the life’s work of Robert Kacmarek, PhD, RRT, FCCM, FCCP, FAARC, Dräger is donating a Babylog VN500 ventilator to each RT school throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. This marks the seventh year of Dräger’s RT school donation program, which began in 2014.
Kacmarek, professor of anesthesiology at Harvard Medical School and the director of Respiratory Care at Massachusetts General Hospital, dedicated his career to the growth of the respiratory profession, serving as a member of the American Association for Respiratory Care (AARC) for more than 50 years, writing 19 textbooks, authoring or co-authoring over 300 articles, and presenting more than 700 lectures at respiratory care and medical conferences nationally and worldwide. He passed away on April 1, 2021.
Jason Moury, MPH, RRT, president of the Massachusetts Society for Respiratory Care (MSRC), commented on Kacmarek’s work and Dräger’s donation in his honor.
“Bob was a humble giant who advocated for the profession and was world-renowned for his teaching. Words cannot express the loss that this profession will feel with his passing. We cannot thank Dräger enough for its donation. We appreciate all that the company has done in support of the RT profession and schools, including this latest contribution to Massachusetts RT programs.”
“Robert Kacmarek was a driving force in furthering the RT profession, championing the advancement of higher education in the field, conducting decades of research on respiratory care interventions and training hundreds of students,” said Dräger Senior Vice President of Sales, Hospital Solutions, Steve Menet. “Through our donation of Babylog VN500 ventilators, we honor his legacy and support education of the next generation of respiratory care professionals by enabling them to train on advanced ventilation technology.”