PIONEERING doctor Virginia Apgar’s extraordinary life has been celebrated as a Google Doodle.
Let’s take a closer look at the ground-breaking physician.
Dr Virginia Apgar is celebrated by Google on her 109th birthday
Who is Dr Virginia Apgar?
Born in New Jersey in 1909 to a musical family, Apgar always had a keen interest in science and left school knowing she wanted to be a doctor.
She initially studied zoology, chemistry and physiology before attending Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.
However, she was discouraged from pursuing surgery by Dr Allen Whipple at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center who instead advised her to study anaesthesiology.
She eventually became a leading figure in the fields of anaesthesiology and teratology.
The doctor developed a newborn infant's neonatal prognosis, known as the Apgar Score, which is taken within minutes of birth and has become standard practice in hospitals worldwide.
After starting work in New York in 1933, Dr Apgar was disturbed by the treatment of newborn babies particularly those who were malformed or had troubled breathing.
To her astonishment, infants who were blue or were struggling to breathe were listed as stillborn and left to die.
This prompted the fiercely passionate physician to develop her score, which has a range of zero to ten based on a tot’s condition.
It soon became clear that a baby with a poor rating could be resuscitated, by oxygen and warming, to a good score in around five minutes.
Thanks in part to Apgar’s work, the death rate for newborns in the US has dropped from one in 30 in the 1950s to one in 500 today.
Known for her boundless energy and sense of humour, Dr Apgar never married or had children.
She died of cirrhosis of the liver on August 7, 1974.
Getty - Contributor Dr Virginia Apgar developed the Apgar Score
Why is the American doctor being celebrated by Google?
On June 6, 2018, search giant Google marked what would have been Dr Apgar’s 109th birthday with a Google Doodle.
What is a Google Doodle?
In 1998, the search engine founders Larry and Sergey drew a stick figure behind the second 'o' of Google as a message to that they were out of office at the Burning Man festival and with that, Google Doodles were born.
The company decided that they should decorate the logo to mark cultural moments and it soon became clear that users really enjoyed the change to the Google homepage.
In that same year, a turkey was added to Thanksgiving and two pumpkins appeared as the 'o's for Halloween the following year.
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Now, there is a full team of doodlers, illustrators, graphic designers, animators and classically trained artists who help create what you see on those days.
Among the Doodles published in 2018 were ones commemorating cartographer Abraham Ortelius, Egyptian actor Omar Sharif and St Patrick's Day.
Earlier in the year, the search giant celebrated the Paralympics in 2018 in Pyeongchang with an animated design celebrating each of the sports the winter Paralympians will compete in.
The history of Google Doodles, what they are and where they came from
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During the 1930s and '40s, Dr. Virginia Apgar noticed a troubling trend involving newborns.
While the infant mortality rate in the US had declined, the rate of infant deaths within the first 24 hours after birth remained constant. As an obstetric anesthesiologist, Apgar was able to identify physical characteristics that could distinguish healthy newborns from those in trouble.
Apgar's observations led to the development in 1952 of the Apgar score, a quick and convenient method for immediately evaluating how well the newborn weathered the birthing process, especially the effects of obstetric anesthesia.
To honor Apgar's contribution to neonatology -- the medical care of newborn infants -- Google dedicated its Doodle Thursday to the doctor on her 109th birthday.
Generally conducted one and five minutes after birth, the test assigns a score of zero to two for each of five criteria: appearance, pulse, grimace, activity and respiration (APGAR). Scores of seven and higher are generally normal, four to six fairly low, and three and lower are generally regarded as critically low. The test helps medical personnel determine whether a newborn needs immediate medical care.
The test spread through US hospitals in the 1960s, proving a useful measurement for quickly assessing a newborn's physical condition. The technique is still used in hospitals throughout the US.
Apgar graduated fourth in class at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1933, and in 1949 became the first woman named a full professor at the school.
In 1959, she embarked on a second career, earning a master's degree in Public Health from Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health. Armed with her new degree, she went to work at the March of Dimes Foundation, directing research to prevent and treat birth defects.
She also published more than 60 scientific articles and several essays for newspapers and magazines during her career. Her 1972 book Is My Baby All Right? explains the causes and treatment of common birth defects and proposes precautions to help improve the chances of having a healthy baby.
Apgar died at the age of 65 in 1974.
Doodling our world: Check out Google's previous celebrations of people, events and holidays that impact our lives.
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Dr. Virginia Apgar came into this world on June 7, 1909. 109 years later, her presence can still be felt in delivery rooms across the globe. That’s because she invented the Apgar score , the first standardized method for assessing a newborn’s health. It looks at 5 factors, which doctors remember by spelling out her last name: appearance, pulse, grimace, activity, and respiration. Apgar first came up with this scoring system in 1952, and it has been used in nearly every hospital birth since.
Before Apgar’s life-saving invention, she already had a number of impressive accolades under her belt. She was the first woman to become a full professor at her alma mater, the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and was the director of the school’s department of anesthesiology. After Apgar left Columbia in the late 1950s, she devoted the rest of her years to the prevention of birth defects as a director at the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (now the March of Dimes).
Today, on what would’ve been her 109th birthday, we celebrate a woman whose incredible life’s work continues to touch – and sometimes save – brand new lives every day.
Described as a leader in the field of anesthesiology and hailed for developing the Apgar score system, a test that determines 60 seconds after birth whether a baby needs help to sustain life, Virginia Apgar would have been 109 on June 7.
In her honour, Google is changing its logo in 15 countries to a doodle, or illustration, of her and the Apgar score.
But in her lifetime, the doctor was not always appreciated for her achievements. This is her story:
A potential doctor
Apgar was born in New Jersey. She was the youngest of three children. Her father was an insurance executive, but also an inventor and astronomer.
Before she was born, her eldest brother died from tuberculosis, and the other one suffered from chronical diseases.
This inheritance motivated her to study zoology, chemistry and physiology before attending Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, and obtaining a medical degree in 1933.
However, she was soon discouraged by Dr Allen Whipple, the chairman of surgery at Columbia Medical Center, from pursuing her career as a surgeon.
Era of female doctor shortage
According to a publication on The Time, there were only 7,000 women doctors in the United States before she was born, but the number dropped even further around the time she was born.
Many of the schools that offered accepted medical education did not admit women at all. Women who did manage to attain the medical degree were often discouraged.
She was no exception and she was instead encouraged to practice anaesthesiology. Dr Whipple felt advancements were needed in that area, and she seemed to have the "energy and ability."
She eventually rose and became director of Columbia University's department of anaesthesia, and in 1949 she became the first woman to become a full-time professor at Columbia University.
She became a leading figure in the fields of anaesthesiology and teratology. As attending anesthesiologist at Presbyterian Hospital, she assisted in the delivery of close to 20,000 babies.
Apgar Score
In the 1950s, the US infant mortality rate decreased, but the number of infant deaths within the first 24 hours remained high.
She noticed that infants who were blue or were struggling to breathe were listed as stillborn and left to die. The scientist began investigating methods for decreasing the infant mortality.
She developed a test known as the Apgar Score, which measures body functions and helps doctors determine within 60 seconds after the birth whether a baby needs help to sustain life.
The functions are heart rate, respiration, muscle tone, reflexes and skin colour. Through this method, she found out that a baby with a poor rating could be resuscitated by oxygen and warming.
Babies get a score of zero, one or two for each of those factors, and the total scores let doctors know if something is wrong.
Apgar's work contributed to a drop in deaths, from one in 30 in the 1950s to one in 500 today. The Apgar score is still used in some hospitals in the US.
It takes only 2 minutes to learn 5 signs of vitality in newborns! Thanks to Virginia Apgar #laboranddelivery #childbirth #apgardians pic.twitter.com/aSk3Ij4ivI — Deborah Townsend (@apgardiandeb) February 22, 2017
Rubella pandemic
During the rubella pandemic of 1964, Apgar became an advocate for universal vaccination to prevent mother-to-child transmission of the disease.
Rubella could cause serious disorders if a woman becomes infected while pregnant.
Apgar promoted effective use of a testing, which can identify women who are at risk for transmission of antibodies across the placenta.
She devoted the rest of her life to prevent conditions that caused newborns to have low Apgar scores.
During her career, she maintained optimism and used to say "women are liberated from the time they leave the womb."
Apgar never got married, "I never found a man who could cook," she said. She died in 1974 at the age of 65 from cirrhosis of the liver.
Honours
