Stent maker visits LMHS

LIMA - Lima Memorial Hospital has changed a lot since James Tobin was born inside more than six decades ago.

"It's amazing. I get to one hospital or another almost every week but this is the first time I've been in Lima Memorial, the hospital I was born," Tobin said.

On Friday he visited the hospital as the chief executive officer and president of Boston Scientific Corp., which supplies the heart center with equipment used to save lives. Tobin was in town to speak to medical professionals at a dinner and wanted to see Lima Memorial Health System's heart center.

Leading Tobin on the tour was Dr. Pierre Bamdad, medical director of the cardiac and vascular service line at the hospital, and the hospital president and CEO, Mike Swick.

"I get in a lot of hospitals and this is one of the nicest I've been in in a long time," Tobin said.

Tobin, a 1962 graduate of Lima Senior High School, runs Boston Scientific Corp. in Natick, Mass. His company makes a variety of medical devices, but most are associated with heart procedures.

Boston Scientific is the world's largest maker of stents used to open blocked blood vessels, he said.

The company spends $1 billion a year on research looking for new ways to deal with heart problems, Tobin said.

"We haven't cured heart disease yet. There are a lot of people who need to be treated. We spend $1 billion a year on trying to figure out how to treat them better," he said.

Tobin said catching health problems and treating the problems with less invasive procedures early on saves money in the long run that would have had to been spent on costlier procedures such as open-heart surgery.

Although his company makes high-tech equipment, it fits in perfect in smaller city hospitals like Lima, he said.

"It takes less space, less training, less everything to accomplish," he said.