Distinguished Alumni Award

Some inventors have their “Eureka!” moment in the shower, others while out for a jog. For Marsden Blanch, inspiration struck when his wife, Lynette, was frying an egg in a Teflon-coated pan in 1986.

“For years, I’d been frustrated by the stainless steel electrosurgical knives everyone was using to cauterize and cut tissue,” Blanch said. “The blade would get burned up with char during surgery, and we’d all have to stand around while the scrub nurse cleaned it off. This could add 15 to 30 minutes to every surgery. I thought, ‘What if we coated a knife with Teflon?’”  

When the manufacturer of the knives dismissed the idea as impossible, Blanch found a local company to help develop the product. Many prototypes later, his invention became a best-seller.

Today, Megadyne is the third-largest electrosurgical company in the United States. Blanch and his partners sold the company to Ethicon Endo-Surgery, a Johnson & Johnson company, in 2017.

Blanch grew up in Salt Lake City with six older siblings and a dad who worked as a railroad inspector. Although neither of his parents graduated from high school, they imparted the value of a good education to their children. Blanch’s older brother had graduated from Harvard Medical School, and Blanch was leaning toward engineering as he left for a mission with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in the late 1960s.

It was during his Florida Caribbean Mission that Blanch discovered his calling. “I had goofed off in high school, but being on the mission, I realized a few things,” he said. “First of all, I discovered I enjoyed learning and was smart enough to do medicine if I applied myself. Second, I really liked the sciences and being around people. Medicine seemed to offer everything I wanted in a career.”

Blanch is the 2020-’21 recipient of the University of Utah School of Medicine Distinguished Alumni Award.

“I love the School of Medicine and the dedicated people who trained me in more ways than just how to be a doctor, but in life—how to study and become educated,” he said. “Everything I do and have done, every accomplishment began at the school of medicine. I will always feel a huge debt of gratitude and obligation to do what I can to help the school. I love the people, attitude, the way the college is going—every aspect of it.”

Following his mission, Blanch returned to Utah and met the “beautiful, smart, and supportive” Lynette at a dance. They married during his undergraduate years at Brigham Young University and started a family.

Blanch attended the Utah School of Medicine, then matched into a surgical internship at University of Utah Health, where he discovered a passion for otolaryngology. He credits his career path to James Parkin, MD, who was otolaryngology chief at the hospital. Their friendship has endured for 45 years.

When Blanch endowed a Presidential Chair in the Division of Otolaryngology in 2019, he did so in honor of Parkin.

 “I was drawn to the variety of otolaryngology, where you get to do everything from office procedures to microscopic ear surgery to cosmetic facial surgery,” Blanch said. “But mostly, I really liked Jim—he is a man of integrity and intelligence with a great sense of humor. I wanted to train under him, but by the time I’d decided to do that, all the residency spots at the U were full. I was accepted but would have to wait a year to start.”

Blanch saw this as an opportunity, rather than a setback. He moved his family to nearby Taylorsville, opened a family medicine practice, and worked night shifts at Cottonwood Hospital’s emergency department.

Parkin remembers being impressed.

“A lot of applicants would have just taken that year off, but Marsden had the courage to go into private practice on his own, knowing he’d only be there a year,” he said. “It’s not an easy thing to do, but Marsden was a success.”

When the year was up, Blanch sold the practice and began his residency at the University of Utah. After completing his training there in 1979, he opened a solo practice in Sandy. The many family physicians he’d befriended in Taylorville became his referral base, and Blanch remembers thinking he must have been one of the busiest otolaryngologists in town.

I thought, ‘What if we coated a knife with Teflon?’”

The next 15 years were full as Blanch grew his practice, and he and Lynette raised their six children. Megadyne took off, and by 1995 Blanch was working on the business with two equity partners.

Then, in 1995, he received a phone call that would send him and his family in a totally new direction. The LDS Church asked him to be the full-time mission president in Southern California. After prayerful consideration, the family moved from Salt Lake City to San Bernardino, Calif., for a three-year assignment. He and Lynette worked 80-hour weeks, supervising about 200 young men and women on the mission field.

“I missed being in medicine, but it was a nice change after being on call every other night for 25 years,” Blanch said. “My partners at Megadyne managed the business in my absence and diversified our product line. I was fully expecting to return to Salt Lake and pick up where I’d left off.”

A severe bout of myocarditis put an end to that plan. Blanch spent three weeks in the hospital and suffered damage to his heart. “I realized I might not have that many years left,” said Blanch, who was 52 at the time. “It seemed like I should focus on the things that only I could do, and for me, that meant spending time with my family and helping Megadyne grow.”

And grow it did. Blanch and his partners doubled down on electrosurgical devices. They expanded their manufacturing operations, sold their products to hospitals around the globe, and employed 200 salespeople and 200 corporate employees. Megadyne, now part of Johnson & Johnson, is still based in Draper, Utah.

Throughout his 32-year tenure as Megadyne’s board chairman and chief medical officer, Blanch remained in medicine. He has volunteered for many years at the Health Clinics of Utah in his capacity as an otolaryngologist.

Today, his role as a caregiver is even more personal. Ten years ago, Lynette was diagnosed with early Alzheimer’s disease. She lives in a memory care facility and is in the late stages of the disease.

“Marsden has always been kind and generous,” Parkin said. “Before the pandemic, he visited Lynette every day, fed her, and tended to her needs—and he did the same for other patients at the care center. I’ve faced health challenges in the last several years, and Marsden has been a trusted friend to me as well.”

Blanch continues to visit Lynette, even as her condition has deteriorated. He spends a few days a month on his working ranch in Heber Valley, where his staff raises Scottish highlander cattle, harvests Honey Crisp apples, and grows alfalfa. Blanch himself tends about 20 beehives on the property. With most of his six children, 25 grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren in the area, life is full.

And his medical career has come full circle—Blanch runs a neighborhood clinic several afternoons a week in his home. “Retired doctors like me have so much training and experience to share,” Blanch said. “One reason I wanted to become a doctor was the chance to provide one-on-one care. I didn’t realize how important that would be, how important it is right now for my family, friends, and neighbors.”

• Leigh Wilkins

A shorter version of this article appears in the print edition of UtahMed.