Eugene MacMullan Washington doctor was a leader in using balloon angioplasty process
Oxford — Eugene “Gene” C. MacMullan, of Oxford, passed away June 7, 2020, at the age of 90, after a brief illness. He was born in The Bronx, N.Y., July 11, 1929. Gene and his twin brother, Edward, enlisted in the U.S. Navy right after graduating from Cardinal Hayes High School. He served two separate times: once at the end of World War II, and later, during the Korean War. Gene received a degree in chemical engineering from the University of Illinois; and worked for the Exxon Corporation. His career took him far and wide. He was based in New Jersey, but worked in France, Aruba, Venezuela, Sicily and Curacao. He retired to Connecticut in the 1990s.
He enjoyed a second “career” working on rare book restoration with the North Branford Historical Society, the New Haven Historical Society and the New London Maritime Museum. Gene’s hobbies included sailing, swimming and woodworking.
He married Virginia Grace MacMullan (nee Doughney) on the rooftop of the Grammercy Hotel in New York City in 1954. After 30 years of marriage, Gene was widowed in 1984. He is survived by his daughters, Donna Smith (Richard), Barbara MacMullan (Henry duPont), Virginia MacMullan and Anita MacMullan; grandchildren, Christopher Smith, Matthew Smith and Isabelle duPont; and great-grandson Gael Smith.
Funeral services will be private. Memorial donations in his name can be made to the New Haven Historical Society or the New London Maritime Museum. Condolences may be shared at www.neilanfuneralhome.com.
Kenneth M. Kent, a Washington cardiologist and leading promoter of balloon angioplasty procedures to reduce coronary artery blockages and prevent heart attacks, died May 14 at a nursing home in Potomac, Md. He was 81.
The cause was Parkinson’s disease complicated by the novel coronavirus, said his wife, Carolyn Ewels.
As a young physician, Kent traveled to Zurich to study balloon angioplasty with Andreas Gruentzig, a German doctor widely known for being the first to develop and use it successfully as a method to expand narrowed coronary arteries, a leading cause of heart attacks.
In Washington, Kent was among the first in the national capital area to have used the procedure to clear blocked coronary arteries. He performed balloon angioplasties on tens of thousands of patients, and he taught and advised hundreds of cardiologists nationally and internationally on its techniques and procedures.
The process involves the insertion of a tiny wire into an artery in the groin from which it can guide a tiny balloon to the blocked coronary artery. Reaching the blockage, the balloon is inflated, clearing space for blood to flow more freely to the heart. A stent of tiny wires can then be inserted to keep the passageway clear. Patients often experience immediate relief from their symptoms of angina or shortness of breath.
The process is less invasive and less painful than heart bypass surgery, which can involve cutting open the sternum into the chest cavity to access the blocked coronary arteries, and then harvesting a vein from a leg. The post-surgical recovery is quicker, and the risk of post-surgical complications is less, both in the hospital and at home.
Until he retired at age 75, Kent had a private medical practice in cardiology, and he also practiced and taught at Georgetown University Hospital, Washington Hospital Center, the National Institutes of Health and Suburban Hospital.
He was “a key leader for the initiation of angioplasty in America,” Augusto D. Pichard, former director of the cardiac catheterization laboratories at Washington Hospital Center, said in a tribute video for a lifetime achievement award to Kent at the 2014 Cardiovascular Research Technologies conference.
Kenneth Mitchell Kent was born July 19, 1938, in Tifton, Ga., where his father was an electrical engineer.
A musically inclined grandmother saw to it that Kent took piano and voice lessons, sang in a boys choir at the annual summer cultural conferences at Chautauqua, N.Y., and played a trumpet at church services at home. At 13 he got a part-time job as an announcer at a local radio station.
In midlife, he rekindled his passion for music, took voice and piano lessons again and sang in the choir at Potomac Presbyterian Church. He studied French, took up wind surfing, sailed on the Chesapeake Bay and in the Caribbean, and traveled around the world.
At Emory University in Atlanta, he received a bachelor’s degree in 1960, a medical degree in 1965 and a Ph.D. in physiology in 1970. It was a time when many young doctors were being drafted for military service in the Vietnam War. But he had top grades and evaluations and managed to win a coveted slot in the U.S. Public Health Service, which sent him to the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda.
His marriages to Barbara Boyer and Diane Chapman ended in divorce. In addition to his wife of 34 years, of Potomac, survivors include two children from his second marriage, Mark S. Kent of Orono, Maine, and Laura Gordon of Wake, Va.; three children from his third marriage, Elizabeth Kent of Potomac, Christopher Kent of North Hollywood and Stephen Kent of Brooklyn; and three granddaughters.