He began his training at Johns Hopkins Hospital, where he studied with Alfred Blalock, world renowned for developing a procedure to help children with Blue Baby Syndrome (where insufficient blood travels to the lungs due to congenital heart defects).
[6] Additional studies conducted by his team showed that employing blood cardioplegic techniques in surgical treatment of patients in shock following an acute heart attack, lowered mortality to below 10%, from the over 50% death rate previously associated with conventional methods.
[7] Buckberg introduced the concept of "unintended reoxygenation injury" when blue babies (cyanotic) are placed on cardiopulmonary bypass (heart-lung machine) to correct the congenital defect causing cyanosis.
This study called attention to the role of active interventions, including antioxidants, to limit this injury, and provided the first evidence of a new biochemical pathway that causes this damage.
[16] Further innovative studies by Buckberg's teams achieved additional breakthroughs in treating sudden death syndrome, remedying disorders relating to the septum, and improving pacemaker effectiveness.
[17] In June 2018, Gerald Buckberg published Solving the Mysteries of Heart Disease: Life-Saving Answers Ignored by the Medical Establishment, which follows his career as a cardiac surgeon and researcher.
Written to inform the general public of the existence of medical advances in the cardiac field, many of which have yet to be adopted, the book describes Buckberg's discoveries and tells the stories behind each of them.