A lifetime of teaching, of breaking boundaries, of ability and humility
The Critical Care Research Group joins with collaborators, colleagues, partners and friends around the world in mourning the passing of Professor Robert Bartlett and honouring his extraordinary legacy.
Known globally as the Father of ECMO (Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation), Robert H. Bartlett spent his life not only caring for the critically ill, but pioneering, establishing and teaching others new ways to provide life-saving support to these patients. ECMO, perhaps his most prestigious achievement, is today a standard of care for lung and/or cardiac support for premature infants to the elderly.
A message from CCRG Founder, Professor John Fraser AO -
2025 saw many losses of many wonderful people who have contributed so much to so many. One such person was my personal friend, mentor, confidante and partner in crime , Dr Bob Bartlett.
Writing a brief note on someone so gifted in so many ways is almost impossible. A father, a husband, a musician, an ice hockey player, a doctor, a surgeon, a scientist, an innovator, a raconteur, a singer, a teacher, a mentor, a bon viveur, a whisky lover, a political activist, an agitator. He always had time for anyone with a question, a problem or an idea.
His enthusiasm - "great idea!" - was never faked and always left you feeling emboldened with potential.
He was a friend and visitor to CCRG; when things weren't working, he would offer advice or support but generally both.
At 85 years old, he took on the role of Chair of the Steering Committee for CCRG’s COVID-19 Critical Care Consortium, getting up every week at around 4.00am to help lead us through those dark days. He missed 2 meetings over 2 years - when he had suffered an occipital stroke that lead to blindness that thankfully resolved.
He told very few about it, but with his typical boyish sense of humour, when he re-joined the meeting his only hint was a wry smile after saying, “Hello everyone. You have truly no idea how happy I am to see you all here."
His legacy is writ large across the ELSO family he built and led; across the devices and techniques he created; and the thousands of mentees, myself included, that have pushed to advance the science of mechanical support even an inch or two further from what he left us.
Several weeks before he died, he became blind again. I was describing to him the view of the beach from my place on Stradbroke Island - the dolphins, the whales and the kangaroo poo that the koalas were playing with. He said to me, “John, my days are dark now as I can see nothing. But your stories have been a great gift today because when I go to sleep, I can dream in colour."
Rest in Peace, Bob. May you light up heaven with all the colours of your Kaleidoscopic skill. We will work hard to be worthy of the legacy you have left us.
A celebration of the life of Bob Bartlett will take place at the University of Michigan on 25 and 26 January, 2026. Full details available online here.
CCRG Founder, Professor John Fraser AO, pictured with Dr Robert Bartlett in Ann Arbor, October 2024.
In October 2024, some three decades since the first meeting of the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization (ELSO), members of this global community gathered on the steps of the Rackham Auditorium in Ann Arbor for a special celebration of Dr Bartlett’s extraordinary achievements.
Among the guests was CCRG Founder and Director Professor John Fraser, who is Immediate Past President of the Asia Pacific Chapter of the ELSO, having held the position during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I am fortunate and blessed to call Dr Bartlett not only a mentor, but a dear friend. Countless lives have been saved as a result of his quest to fulfil Dr Gibbon’s vision and the generations of students, engineers, and clinicians he has mentored and inspired.
“All the great leaders in medicine, take an idea and check it and check it and then check it again – it’s the only way you make innovation happen.
“For me, watching him and having the privilege to run my ideas past him has been a career highlight. The selfless way he interacts, to have the ability but also the humility... the ability and the humility – that about sums him up,” said Professor Fraser.
The twentieth century surgeon Dr John Gibbon is widely credited for inventing the heart-lung machine, however it is Dr Robert Bartlett who must be celebrated for uniting a global community committed to the further improvement of the technology, increased clinical knowledge and greater education and support for those who administer it and those who receive it.
“Looking at Gibbon’s challenge in the early days of heart-lung machines, we’ve come a long way. And Dr Bartlett’s work has been instrumental in meeting those challenges and helping to solve those problems,” said Scott Merz, Founder and Former CEO, MC3, Inc.
Members of the Extracorporeal Life Support Organization recreate the photo on the Rackham Auditorium stairs in Ann Arbor - 35 years since the first meeting.
Professor Bartlett was the Chair the Steering Committee for CCRG’s COVID-19 Critical Care Consortium.
Established in early 2020, the COVID-19 Critical Care Consortium (COVID Critical) is a global alliance of healthcare professionals and researchers committed to identifying the most effective treatments for critically ill COVID-19 patients.
After years collaborating remotely via Zoom and emails alone, COVID Critical members came together in London in 2022 for a lifetime celebration in conjunction with the European ELSO meeting. We spoke to COVID Critical members about how they came to be involved with the international, multidisciplinary collaboration and the lasting impact the project will have on medical research.