By Teresa Barnes

Mention the name Tom Petty and most people think of a rock star. Mention Tom Petty to pulmonary patients and experts in pulmonary medicine and they may think of the same thing.

Tom Petty, in the medical community, is a name synonymous with major pulmonary breakthroughs and inventions as well as one of the most established names in the published medical literature. Tom Petty, M.D.’s curriculum vitae (CV) reads like a small volume. It contains 54 pages of verbiage, mostly listings and citations of books, monographs,state of the
art publications, video tapes, Internet communications, editorials, case reports,
forewords to other people’s books.

Dr. Petty did his early research in the bowels of the University of Colorado School of Medicine in the early 1960s and became Chief Resident in Medicine at the school in 1963, meanwhile maintaining instructor in medicine duties. He soon after became a professor of Medicine at the medical school and moved up quickly, spending his entire career teaching everyone from medical students to patients and professionals about the art and science of breathing and delving deeper into the understanding of lung diseases of all kinds.
One of his earliest and most sustaining career achievements came from his work in the University of Colorado around oxygen equipment being used in the space program at NASA. He discovered that the same type of apparatus that worked to help astronauts breathe in space could help patients with lung disease breathe better. He would become known as the father of home oxygen. Ironically, many years later, he’d also become a lung disease patient who’d use his own invention to sustain his own life. He’s called himself an “Oxyphile” and entitling a book Adventures of an Oxy-Phile about his experience using home oxygen and chronicling
what he’d learned not only as an expert, but as a patient with whom other patients could relate.

Dr. Petty has been honored with more than 25 career awards and if there were an award for clever titles for studies, articles, editorials and book titles, he’d
probably have won it, too – with titles like “Grandma”, “In the cards was ARDS. (How we discovered the acute respiratory distress syndrome.)”, “Where to catch fish: A commentary on the early diagnosis of lung cancer”, “Don’t just do something -- stand there!”, “Get a gas?” and
“Sexuality: Sweet or sour?” Dr. Petty told Everything Respiratory publisher Holly Lockwood that of all of his achievements over nearly a 50-year career was not the top award given him recently by the American Thoracic Society for his lifetime achievements (though he really likes that one), it was an award bestowed on him by fellows whom he led in their fellowship program.

His work in pulmonary medicine has focused on the broad range of lung diseases but has had some common themes such as COPD and emphysema, as well as Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS) and lung cancer. His early work led to the discovery of ARDS as a syndrome, a previously unrecognized form of sudden and devastating lung injuries. Today,
Dr. Petty seems pleased that his
work has helped ARDS come a
long way and that more than 65
percent of ARDS patients survive today. Though Dr. Petty has uncovered the answers to many
pulmonary issues and diseases, he says he’s spent time head scratching on occasion. “Of course, I’ve been stumped on some rare diseases,” he said in a recent interview. He also lamented that more progress needs to be made in the early diagnosis and treatment of lung cancer. “We have badly neglected this disease,” he said.

Dr. Petty’s office has wall to wall books, journals, articles and publications. One may find upon quick inspection that most of the volumes are his own work.

He was born in Boulder, Colorado on Christmas Eve, 1932 and has been a gift to the pulmonary patient and medical community.

Dr. Tom Petty

Dr. Petty is clearly one of the most renowned pulmonologists in the history of his chosen profession. If ever there were a friend to patients with lung disease, it must be Tom Petty.

He paved the way so that patients could benefit from many of the services that are standard procedure today. He editorialized and worked to convince the medical profession of the importance of pulmonary rehabilitation and spirometry as well as educated on the advances of medical technology related to oxygen management, his invention many years earlier.
If your lungs are healthy, you may not know the name Tom Petty. But if they aren’t, chances are, you know Tom Petty is a rock star.