Robert Arthur Bruce
Year: October 3rd, 2002
Location: Seattle, Washington
Interviewed by: Blackburn, Henry
Abstract
Dr. Bruce discusses his early exercise physiology work at the University of Rochester, where he was Head of the Chest Laboratory for Pulmonary Function and Cardiology. He recounts the bureaucratic travails required to set up his Taiwanese study, which focused on predictive aspects of exercise and nutrition.
In 1950 Bruce became the first Head of Cardiology at the University of Washington at Seattle. Bruce recalls his exercise physiology studies and exercise electrocardiography, including a discussion of the controversy around the Master two-step test and the development of the Bruce Test, which has become the clinical standard in the U.S. (Henry Blackburn)
Quotes
[P]hysicians traditionally take a history, examine a patient at rest and wonder about what they can do when they are active. Why not develop some way to evaluate [them] during exercise? And we […] settled upon the idea of getting a treadmill, which he bought and it was a monster really designed for exercising horses. It was so heavy that we had to move the lab down to the basement because it was too heavy for the floors of the hospital.
[M]y objective [in Seattle] was to continue the exercise studies and hopefully make them useful for evaluating cardiac patients. For many, many years it [was] my habit to do exercise testing on just about every ambulatory patient I saw. It was just part of the routine. Examination just at rest was not on our agenda. Do exercise and get more information.
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