Virginia Apgar

Virginia Apgar was a physician who helped in over 15,000 births. She was also an educator in medical education, a medical researcher and a researcher, fundraiser, and educator for March of Dimes. She was born on June 7, 1909 and died on August 7, 1974. She attended Mount Holyoke College in 1929. After graduating from there she went on to Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1933 and graduated number 4 in her class, and after went to John Hopkins University, public health until 1959.

Apgar in 1937 became the fiftieth physician in the U.S. certified in anesthesiology. In 1938 she was appointed Director of the Department of Anesthesiology. From 1949-1959 she was a professor of anesthesiology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. She was the first female professor at Columbia University and first female professor of anesthesiology at any institution. In 1949 she developed the Apgar Score System, an easy five-category observation-based assessment of newborn babies health’s in the delivery room, which is now widely used in the U.S. and other places. Apgar made a mnemonic for the five categories of the child’s health.

Appearance (skin color)

Pulse (heart rate)

Grimace (reflex irritability)

Activity (muscle tone)

Respiration (breathing)

Apgar noticed that giving the mother cyclopropane as an anesthetic had, generally, a negative effect on the infant, and as a result they discontinued the use of that in mothers. In 1959 she left Columbia and earned her doctorate in public health at John Hopkins and chose to change her career. From 1959-1967 she served as head of division of congenital malformations, National Foundation; the March of Dimes, which she helped refocus from polio to birth defects. From 1969-1972 Apgar became the director of the basic research for the foundation. From 1965-1971, she served on the board of trustees at Mount Holyoke College. She also was serving as a lecturer at Cornell University. She was the first medical professor in the U.S. to specialize in birth defects. In 1972 she published Is My Baby All Right? which was co-written with Joan Beck. In 1973, she lectured at Johns Hopkins University, and from 1973-1974 she was senior vice-president for medical affairs, National Foundation. Over her years she received four honorary degrees, 1964-1967; she received the Ralph Walders Medal, American Society of Anesthesiologists; she received the Gold Medal of Columbia University; she received Woman of the Year, 1972, Ladies Home Journal; she received an American Academy of Pediatrics prized named for her; and Mount Holyoke College created an academic chair in her name.

I chose Virginia Apgar because it's really admirable how many things she accomplished in her life time. All the firsts she had in the world. She was extremely lucky and I found that really inspiring. There is a lot of things men get to before women, and when a woman accomplishes something like Apgar did its really amazing.