From the June 2016 issue of HealthCare Business News magazine
The score took into account heart rate, respiration, muscle tone, color and reflexes. After some reluctance from the male-dominated medical field, Apgar’s test became the standard by which physicians check the health of the baby after birth. Apgar’s research also helped her make a connection between a type of anesthesia and health issues for newborns. The research she published about her findings led U.S. doctors to stop using cyclopropane on women going into labor.
More than two decades after Apgar rose to her post at Columbia, she took a sabbatical leave to join Johns Hopkins University to get a master of public health degree. It was at Columbia that she had also joined the March of Dimes. She was named head of the division on congenital birth defects, and a decade later named to head the March of Dimes research program. From Johns Hopkins, she moved on to Cornell University. There, she became the first U.S. medical professor with a focus on specializing in research on birth defects.
Apgar died on Aug. 7, 1974, in New York City. She was 65. Although she is gone, her legacy remains, and many a new parent hears her name when they’re anxiously getting information on how their new baby is faring. Apgar’s test is the first test many children encounter in life, although it’s decidedly non-academic for them, even if it was created by a highly accomplished health care professional.
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