People you should know

 

Helen Brooke Taussig (May 24, 1898 – May 20, 1986) was an American cardiologist, working in Baltimore and Boston, who founded the field of pediatric cardiology. She is credited with developing the concept for a procedure that would extend the lives of children born with Tetralogy of Fallot (the most common cause of blue baby syndrome). This concept was applied in practice as a procedure known as the Blalock-Thomas-Taussig shunt. The procedure was developed by Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas, who were Taussig's colleagues at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Taussig was partially deaf following an ear infection in childhood; in early adulthood this progressed to full deafness. To compensate for her loss of hearing, she learned to use lip-reading techniques and hearing aids to speak with her patients. Taussig also developed a method of using her fingers, rather than a stethoscope, to feel the rhythm of their heartbeats. Some of her innovations have been attributed to her ability to diagnose heart problems by touch rather than by sound.

Taussig is also known for her work in banning thalidomide and was widely recognized as a highly skilled physician. She was the first woman to be elected head of the American Heart Association. In 1964, she was awarded a Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Johnson.

You want an example of overcoming obstacles and adversity?  Here you go...

When Taussig was 11 years old, her mother died of tuberculosis. Helen also contracted the disease and was ill for several years, severely affecting her ability to do schoolwork. She also struggled with severe dyslexia through her early school years and was partially deaf.  Despite this, she did well at school due to diligent work and extensive tutoring from her father.

She graduated from Cambridge School for Girls in 1917, then studied for two years at Radcliffe College before earning a bachelor's degree and Phi Beta Kappamembership  from the University of California, Berkeley in 1921.

After graduating, Taussig wished to study at Harvard Medical School, but the medical program did not accept women (this was the case until 1945, though the first woman had applied nearly 100 years earlier, in 1847); the program accepted women in theory but would not grant them a degree. Instead she considered applying to study public health, partially because her father thought it a more suitable field for women.

Taussig ended up taking classes at Boston University in histology, bacteriology, and anatomy, without expecting to receive a degree. She was required to sit at the rear of the lecture hall apart from the male students and not speak to them.  As an anatomy student at Boston University in 1925, she published her first scientific paper on studies of ox heart muscles with her professor Alexander Begg.

With Begg's encouragement, Taussig applied to transfer to the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, one of the few medical schools to admit women at the time, and was accepted as a full-degree candidate. She wanted to specialise in internal medicine, but the one position available for a woman in that specialization was already taken so she opted for pediatrics and the emerging field of pediatric cardiology. After attaining her Doctorate of Medicine in 1927, Taussig remained at Johns Hopkins as a cardiology fellow for one year and two years as a pediatrics intern and received two Archibald Fellowships.