DR.VIRGINIA APGAR (1909–1974)
In New York during the early 1930s and one of the first women to graduate from its medical school, Apgar knew that her goal of becoming a surgeon would not be achieved easily in a male-dominated profession. Reluctantly, she switched her medical specialty to anesthesiology, she embraced her new field with typical intelligence and energy. At this time, anesthesiology was a relatively new field, having been left by the doctors mostly to the attention of nurses.
Apgar realized immediately how much in need of scientifically trained personnel was this significant part of surgery, and she set out to make anesthesiology a separate medical discipline. By 1937, she had become the fiftieth physician to be certified as an anesthesiologist in the United States.
The following year she was appointed director of anesthesiology at the Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, becoming the first woman to head a department at that institution. As the attending anesthesiologist who assisted in the delivery of thousands of babies during these years, Apgar realized that infants had died from respiratory or circulatory complications that early treatment could have prevented. Apgar decided to bring her considerable research skills to this childbirth dilemma, and her careful study resulted in her publication of the Apgar Score System in 1952.
