Engineering Better Care for Kids

Long before 'biomedical engineering' was a common phrase, Robert Hannemann, MD '59, was defining it in pediatrics.

What do you get when you cross an engineer with a pediatrician?

An innovative physician who has fused the best of both worlds. Long before the term "biomedical engineering" was coined, Robert Hannemann, MD '59, and Purdue University Class of '52, had the concept of combining engineering and medicine firmly wired into his conscious.

He began by earning his bachelor's degree in chemical engineering at Purdue (where his wife Eleanor and their three children, Bob, Laura and Sarah have all earned degrees). Then he worked briefly with Sinclair Refining Company in East Chicago before serving two years with Uncle Sam at the U.S. Army Chemical Corp depot in Pine Bluff, Ark.

After the Army, Dr. Hannemann began medical school at IUSM. At that time, he was one of only two or three other engineers ever to be admitted at that time.

He interned at Methodist Hospital and completed his residency at Riley Hospital for Children. Then, in 1962, he was lured back to West Lafayette by a promising job opportunity: a well established, multi-specialty clinic was seeking a pediatrician to create its Department of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.

He took the job, and by the time he retired from Arnett Clinic in 2000, he had built a highly reputable department with thirteen pediatricians in one of the leading clinics in Indiana. But just as important, early on he found the crucial link to his other area of interest - biomedical engineering. The year was 1969, and the link was Robert Greenkorn, PhD, the new chairman of Purdue's School of Chemical Engineering, one of the nation's largest academic chemical engineering departments.

Dr. Greenkorn's children were patients of Dr. Hannemann, and during one of their office visits, the then 39-year-old pediatrician spoke openly about his vision. Dr. Greenkorn responded, "What would it take to get you to come to Purdue and get biomedical engineering started here?" From then on, Dr. Hannemann was a visiting professor in Purdue's chemical engineering department, working with engineers and teaching an introductory course in biomedical engineering.

"I generally presented my students and engineering colleagues with problems I brought in from my practice," he explains. "Much of it was basic research that has pointed the way to landmark discoveries."

"Bubbleshooting"
One discovery in particular, reported in an American Journal of Diseases of Children article in 1973, made life easier on neonatal nurses and safer for their small charges.

Dr. Hannemann was making rounds at a hospital when he noticed a nurse using a syringe to withdraw bubbles in tubing leading from a roller infusion pump. The nurse reported that bubble formations in the tubing were a common problem, so Dr. Hannemann presented the dilemma to his engineering students.

They determined that the air bubbles originated when pores in the plastic pumping element expanded and contracted. A simple clamp on the tubing to raise the pressure in the pump eliminated the problem. The manufacturer then produced a filter to catch the bubbles and later redesigned the pump.

One of Dr. Hannemann's most successful research projects, reported in Human Biology, concerned jaundice in infants. One of the co-authors on this paper was Richard L. Schreiner, MD, now Edwin L. Gresham Professor of Pediatrics, chairman of IUSM's Department of Pediatrics and Riley Hospital's physician-in-chief.

"Back in the old days the only way you could determine if a child had significant jaundice was with a blood test," Dr. Hanneman explains. "I was interested in finding a quick way of evaluating levels of jaundice without drawing blood and that's how we got into the reflected light research. Purdue researchers were the first ones in modern times to prove you could correlate the yellow color with the bilirubin level."

That basic research led to the production of devices that allow a simple test for jaundice that can be accurately done in the hospital clinic or the doctor's office.

Now retired from his pediatrics practice, Dr. Hannemann has visiting professorships in three departments at Purdue - chemical engineering, child psychology and biomedical engineering. He has worked with the Department of Child Psychology since 1973. He thanks Morris Green, MD '44, Riley Hospital's physician-in-chief when Dr. Hannemann was a resident, for the visiting professorship in child psychology.

"I was among the first group of pediatricians who were trained in adolescent medicine and psychology," says Dr. Hannemann. "Dr. Green had started a clinic in behavioral pediatrics that we had to participate in as residents. He used to tell us, 'When you get in practice you'll have to know how to do this because those diseases you think you are so good at treating, like polio, probably aren't going to be around because there will be vaccines for them.' And we'd say 'Oh, no, that will never happen!'"

But those and other advances did come and youngsters' health is better today because of Dr. Robert Hannemann and his colleagues.