He became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1944 and had his first real taste of saving lives in the U.S. Army Medical Corps from 1946 to '47.  Dr. Weil earned an M.D. degree in 1952 from State University, Downstate Medical Center of New York.  After a stint on the cardiology unit at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn., the 31-year-old physician moved to California, where he met his future co-researcher, the late Dr. Herbert S. Shubin. 

In 1958 at Los Angeles County-USC Medical Center, the two cardiologists wondered why many patients died -- often at night -- while recovering from a heart attack, serious illness or surgery. They discovered that without a way to check vital signs continually, nurses often weren't aware their patients were slipping away.  Monitoring blood pressure, pulse, breathing and other vital signs moment by moment would give staff a chance to intervene with lifesaving care. That insight laid the foundation of the "critical care" concept. The four-bed "Shock Ward" Drs. Weil and Shubin developed at LA County General was the first of its kind.  It evolved within a decade into 42-bed Center for the Critically Ill at USC, becoming a model for today's intensive care, coronary care, trauma and post-operative care units.

Begun in 1961 as a joint project of the departments of medicine and surgery at USC, Weil Institute of Critical Care Medicine incorporated as an independent, nonprofit organization in 1975.  That same year, Dr. Shubin died at age 50 of a heart attack while mountain climbing near Lake Mammoth. "His death had a profound impact on my life," Dr. Weil said.  "This prompted a very strong commitment to understand better how to save lives after the heart stops."  Dr. Weil transferred much of the Institute's activities to the Midwest when he became chief of medicine at Chicago Medical School in 1980.  Eleven years later, he began consolidating the Los Angeles and Chicago programs in Palm Springs, completing the transfer in 1994.

Over the following decade, an impressive array of technology poured from institute laboratories for monitoring and dealing with life-threatening circulatory shock, heart failure, acute lung failure and infections. The most recent breakthrough was a drug, announced in November, for reducing heart failure following successful CPR.  Studies showed levosimendan greatly improved survival rates from impaired cardiac function that often follows resuscitation, according to lab director Dr. Shijie Sun.  Breakthroughs include chest compressor, resuscitation blanket and bone marrow stem cells for repairing the brain and heart damage after cardiac arrest.

In conjunction with the opening of the new Institute building named in honor of Joe, Corinne and Peter Solomon, the trustees added the name of Dr. Weil to that of the Institute, designating it as the Weil Institute of Critical Care Medicine.

New Headquarters

Beginning 1991, the Institute conducted its educational and research programs in space initially sponsored by the Desert Hospital and The Desert Healthcare District. Advances in technology and the desirability of a permanent and expanded facility prompted the trustees of the Institute to plan its own building to house its International Headquarters. Its new building was occupied by the Institute in March of 2005, on an 11-acre property which was gifted on Bob Hope Drive in Rancho Mirage, California. It is here that the opportunity for expanding its life-saving missions will continue.

The new 24,000 square foot center  provides The Institute with the capability for expanding radiological, radio-isotopic and bacteriological/viral laboratories, a comprehensive research library, teaching auditorium, engineering laboratories, together which classroom and administrative spaces which have been doubled in size.

You may find additional information about this and other Institute activities by downloading our current Newsletter.

Click here to see photos of our Open House held on March 10, 2005.

Click here to see the progress of the new Institute headquarters.