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Virginia Apgar
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Virginia Apgar was one of Columbia University's first female M.D.s. She graduated in 1933. She was one of the first American women to specialize in surgery. She became Columbia's first-ever full Professor of Anesthesiology in 1949. Apgar specialized in anesthesia and childbirth. She invented the Newborn Scoring System... called the Apgar Score, in 1949 that assessed the health of newborns.
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![[Virginia Apgar]. [ca. 1962].](http://retrieverimages.lycos.com/images/v/i/r/virginia-apgar/i/001.jpg)
Virginia Apgar (1909-1974) was an American physician who is best known for the Apgar Score, a simple, rapid method for assessing newborn viability. Developed in the early 1950s and quickly adopted by obstetric teams, the method reduced infant mortality and laid the foundations of neonatology. Apgar scoring has been a standard obstetric practice for the past forty years. While best known for this achievement, Apgar was ... a leader in the emerging field of anesthesiology during the 1940s and in the new field of teratology (the study of birth defects) after 1960.
Virginia Apgar contributed to many areas of medicine during her career, including anesthesiology, infant care, and the study and prevention of birth defects. It was her work with new babies and mothers... that has left the greatest mark in the health sciences. She was the creator of the Apgar Newborn Scoring System, a method of evaluating the health of infants minutes after birth in order to ensure the delivery of proper care. Apgar also contributed to infant health through her discovery that some anesthetics given to women during childbirth had a negative effect on babies. Her findings led doctors across the country to revise their use of painkillers during labor. Later in her career, Apgar was a vital force in the March of Dimes organization, where she directed research efforts, raised money, and educated the public about birth defects.
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Virginia Apgar specialized in anesthesiology and childbirth. She developed the Newborn Scoring System, later called the Apgar score, in 1949 for practitioners to use in deciding whether or not a newborn needed resuscitation. This score provides a uniform method of observation and evaluation of a newborn infant's need for resuscitation immediately after delivery at one minute and again at five minutes. The score is significant because one person in the delivery room evaluates the infant using five signs in an objective, standard and measurable manner. Research published in The New England Journal of Medicine in 2001 concluded that the Apgar scoring system remains as relevant for the prediction of neonatal survival in the early 2000s as it was in 1949.
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Virginia Apgar was born in Westfield, New Jersey on June 7, 1909 to Charles E. Apgar, a businessman and insurance executive, and Helen May Clarke Apgar. After graduating from high school in Westfield she entered Mount Holyoke College in 1925. She majored in zoology, wrote articles for the student newspaper, participated in campus athletics and dramatics, and played violin in the College orchestra. After receiving a B.A. in 1929 she became one of the first women to study at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. She received her M.D. in 1933 and began an internship in surgery at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center. After two years of work Apgar became convinced that a woman could not support herself as a surgeon and decided to enter the newly-emerging field of anesthesiology.
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Virginia Apgar was born on June 7, 1909, in Westfield, New Jersey. She attended Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts and received an A.B. degree in 1929. She enrolled in the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University and graduated in 1933 with the M.D. degree. From 1933 to 1935, she was an intern in surgery at Presbyterian Hospital in New York City; from 1936 to 1937, she was a resident in anesthesiology at Presbyterian and Bellevue hospitals in New York City. Dr. Apgar then became an anesthesiologist and clinical director of the Department of Anesthesiology at Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center and professor of anesthesiology at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, serving from 1938 to 1959.
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Virginia Apgar