GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. (WOOD) — Dr. Robert H. Bartlett, a University of Michigan surgeon who helped pioneer a critical piece of life support technology, has died. He was 86 years old.
Michigan Medicine announced Bartlett’s death on Tuesday. The emeritus surgeon passed away Monday after a long illness.
Bartlett earned his bachelor’s degree at Albion College and then his medical degree from U-M in 1963. Years later, while on faculty at the University of California-Irvine School of Medicine, he joined a team researching what would ultimately become ECMO — extracorporeal membrane oxygenation…