A few days ago, while I was looking for information for a school project, I saw the name "Virginia Apgar". To be honest, I didn't pay much attention to it since I was running out of time, but somehow that name got stuck in my head. When I finished my project I decided to search her on the Internet to know why was she famous.
When I found out, I was very surprised. She had invented such a great thing! Why wasn't she well-know then? The answer is simple: she was a woman. Maybe some of you will not agree with me, but trust me on this.
Of course, if you don't believe it, you can read this little article I have written about her life. Hope you enjoy it! You can tell me what you think about this woman or mention other wonderful people that should be more famous than they are now on the comments.
Virginia Apgar was born in Westfield, New Jersey, US, on June 7, 1909. She was a physician and obstetrical anesthesiologist. She is known for the development of the Apgar Score System, a method of evaluating an infant shortly after birth to assess its well-being and to determine if any immediate medical intervention is required.
She carried out her secondary studies in the Westfield High School, graduating in 1925. That same year she entered the Holyoke College, where she studied zoology. She obtained a Bachelor Degree in 1929. That same year, she joined the University of Columbia to study medicine. She graduated in 1933. After an internship at the Presbyterian Hospital, New York City, she held residencies in the relatively new specialty of anesthesiology at the University of Wisconsin. She decided to specialize in that discipline due to the lack of awareness at the administration of the right amount of anesthesia (which was based on empiricism). However, anesthesiologists were considered inferior to doctors, and they were paid less.
Apgar and a nurse of the hospital, Anne Penland, decided to create a manual. In Notes on Anesthesia, they explained the use of anesthesia.
Between 1933 and 1939, the number of patients that needed anesthesia for a surgery increased, but the number of anesthesiologists working at the Presbyterian Hospital didn’t. It was not until the attack on Pearl Harbor that things started to change. Many people enlisted in the army as doctors or nurses. When they came back after the war ended, they had changed their minds: anesthesia was vital and it should be treated equally to other specialties.
An interest in the obstetric procedure, and particularly in the treatment of the newborn, led her to develop a simple system for quickly evaluating the condition and viability of newly delivered infants. As finally presented in 1952, the Apgar Score System relies on five simple observations to be made by delivery room personnel (nurses or interns) of the infant within one minute of birth and—depending on the results of the first observation—periodically thereafter. It measured the heart rate, breathing rate, response to stimulation, colour of skin and muscle tone. The Apgar Score System soon came into general use throughout the United States and was adopted by several other countries as it was a huge success. In fact, it helped to save a lot of young lives!
In 1959 Apgar left Columbia and took a degree in public health from Johns Hopkins University. She headed the division of congenital malformations at the National Foundation-March of Dimes from 1959–67. She was promoted to director of basic research at the National Foundation (1967–72), and she later became senior vice president for medical affairs (1973–74). She co-wrote the book Is My Baby All Right? (1972) with Joan Beck.
She won several prizes, such as an honorary Ph.D. from the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania and other from the Mount Holyoke College. She also got the Elizabeth
Blackwell medal, given by the American Medical Women's Association. Finally, she got a honoris causa from New Jersey College of Medicine and Dentistry.
She died due to an hepatic failure on august 7th, 1974, in the Medical Centre of Columbia.
