St. Petersburg Doctor To Donate $2 Million To UF Biomedical Program

May 1, 2000

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Five years after a heart transplant at Shands at the University of Florida medical center that he credits with saving his life, a St. Petersburg heart surgeon is donating $2 million to UF’s growing Biomedical Engineering Graduate Program.

Dr. John Crayton Pruitt’s gift, to be made in installments over a five-year period beginning in May, will be placed in a fund that, once complete, will generate a continual yearly income of $200,000 for the program.

“With developments ranging from the dialysis machine to the pacemaker to artificial bones and tissues, biomedical engineering plays a crucial role in modern medicine,” said Jack Ohanian, interim dean of the College of Engineering, home to the biomedical engineering program. “Dr. Pruitt’s generous donation helps ensure our program will continue to contribute to this important endeavor, primarily through research as well as the education of future biomedical engineers.”

Pruitt, 70, said his decision to make the donation is based in part on his successful heart transplant operation at Shands in 1995. That operation occurred shortly after a bypass operation in St. Petersburg, he said. His heart developed an abnormal rhythm and he was flown by helicopter to Shands, where Mark Staples, a heart surgeon and associate professor in the UF College of Medicine, led the team that performed the heart transplant.

“The whole surgical department and transplant team were just outstanding — the doctors, the transplant coordinators, the nurses — everyone involved,” he said. “And so, when I was able to make a commitment for a donation, the University of Florida was high on my list.”

Pruitt added that his donation also was spurred in part by his own interest in biomedical engineering. The inventor of several medical devices, he helped found a biomedical company, Ideas for Medicine, that has since been sold to a larger company. Additionally, Pruitt said, both of his sons graduated from UF, one with a law degree and one with a medical degree. “I felt UF did a very good job educating my children,” he said.

Chris Batich, professor of materials science and engineering and director of the biomedical engineering program, said the income from Dr. Pruitt’s donation will help fund research projects as well as needed equipment, such as computers. The income is particularly important to the program because it provides a steady source of income.

“Dr. Pruitt’s gift will allow us to take advantage of opportunities for novel collaborations between physicians and engineers, which is really what we’re trying to focus on in this program,” Batich said. “The key thing is to facilitate these collaborations through interactions with graduate students, who often have very creative solutions, as well as through financial support for the researchers.” Under current state law, Pruitt’s gift is eligible for $2 million in state matching funds. Proposed changes to the law may reduce that amount.

UF’s Biomedical Engineering Graduate Program was officially launched in 1998 with a $1 million grant from the Whitaker Foundation, a private foundation that supports biomedical research and education. About 30 UF faculty members, predominantly in the colleges of engineering and medicine, currently participate in the program, which had a graduate enrollment of 40 students in the 1999-2000 academic year.