At a recent dinner, we had an argument with a family member about cardiologist Bernard Lown. (What? You don't argue about Jewish physicians at family dinners? As! If!)

Lown is best known as the inventor of the modern defibrillator, which, obviously, is very fantastic. He is also a Lithuanian-born Jew, which is why he was brought up at family dinner. But did he win the Nobel Prize? That's what the argument was about. (What? You don't argue about Jewish Nobel laureates at family dinners? As! If!)

We distinctly remember writing a JONJ profile of Aaron Klug, which listed the only three Lithuanian-born Nobel laureates, and Lown (who emigrated from Lithuania to the US in 1935) was not among them. And we're not ones to make such omissions...

As it turns out, Lown did not win the Nobel himself. He won it as part of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which he co-founded with Soviet counterpart Yevgeny Chazov. The organization won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985, in one of those rare occasions when the Nobel committee decides to honor an entire group. And since Lown was the one who actually ACCEPTED the prize... (Did he win a coin toss with Chazov?)

So does that make Lown an actual Nobel laureate? (What? You expected us to actually settle a family dinner argument? As! If!)