James McEwen (engineer)

James McEwen OC OBC (born June 10, 1948) is a Canadian biomedical engineer and the inventor of the microprocessor-controlled automatic tourniquet system, which is now standard for 15,000-20,000 procedures daily in operating rooms worldwide. Their widespread adoption and use has significantly improved surgical safety, quality and economy. McEwen is President of Western Clinical Engineering Ltd., a biomedical engineering research and development company and he is a director of Delfi Medical Innovations Inc., a company he founded to commercialize some results of that research and development. He is also an adjunct professor in the School of Biomedical Engineering, in the Department of Orthopaedics and in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of British Columbia.

In 2020, to recognize his invention of automatic tourniquets for surgery and other applications he was inducted to the U.S. National Inventors Hall of Fame, joining others including Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, the Wright brothers, Banting and Best, Nikola Tesla and Steve Jobs. The National Inventors Hall of Fame, in partnership with the United States Patent and Trademark Office, 'honors the visionaries whose patented inventions have changed our world'. Inductees 'must hold a U.S. patent for an invention that is groundbreaking or a significant advancement in their field' and their 'inventions have been put into widespread use and have improved societal well-being, provided economic benefits to the country and advanced scientific understanding'.

He currently resides in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.