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Sunday, March 31, 2002

1948: Graduated from medical school at the University of Vienna, where he then trained in pathology and surgery.

1949: Began surgical internship at Yale New Haven Hospital in Connecticut.

1950: Moved with his bride from Vienna to Philadelphia for his anesthesiology training.

1952: Established anesthesiology department at the National Cancer Hospital in Lima, Peru.

1954: Joined the staff of Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore.

1955: Left Johns Hopkins to found anesthesiology department at Baltimore City Hospital.

1956: Began key studies of airway and breathing, steps A and B, of what would become cardiopulmonary resuscitation, or CPR; with fire department chief, began designing prototype of modern ambulance and training firefighters to be emergency medical technicians.

1958: Established the country's first intensive care unit.

1961: Established anesthesiology department at University of Pittsburgh; launched the state's first respiratory therapy program and the world's first critical- care medicine program to train physicians in the skills of intensive care.

1967: Co-developed the Freedom House Enterprise Ambulance Service, in which the city's first ambulances were staffed by its first paramedics, who were trained along national guidelines that Safar helped create.

1976: Helped create the organization that would become the World Association for Disaster and Emergency Medicine.

1979: Retired from chairmanship of anesthesiology; founded the International Resuscitation Research Center at Pitt.

1989: Retired from practicing clinical anesthesiology at age 65.

1994: Stepped down from directorship of IRRC, which was then renamed the Safar Center for Resuscitation Research in his honor.

2002: Pitt announces the creation of the world's first department of critical care medicine, which evolved from the training program Safar created.