Helen B. Taussig
| Helen Brooke Taussig | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
May 24, 1898 Cambridge, Massachusetts |
| Died | 20 May 1986 (aged 87) Chester County, Pennsylvania |
| Nationality | United States |
| Fields | cardiology |
| Alma mater | Johns Hopkins School of Medicine |
| Known for |
Pediatric cardiology, Blalock–Taussig shunt |
| Notable awards |
E. Mead Johnson Award (1947) Lasker-DeBakey Clinical Medical Research Award (1954) John Howland Award (1971) Elizabeth Blackwell Medal (1982) |
Pediatric cardiology,
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. Notably, 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-Taussig shunt. The procedure was developed by Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas, who were Taussig's colleagues at the Johns Hopkins Hospital.
Taussig is also known for her work in banning thalidomide and was widely recognized as a highly skilled physician.
Helen Brooke Taussig was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts on May 24, 1898 to Frank W. Taussig and Edith Thomas Guild, who had three other children. Her father was an economist at Harvard University, and her mother was one of the first students at Radcliffe College, a women's college.
When Taussig was 11 years old, her mother succumbed to 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. She graduated from Cambridge School for Girls in 1917, then studied for two years at Radcliffe before earning a bachelor's degree from the University of California, Berkeley in 1921.
Taussig later studied histology, bacteriology, and anatomy at both Harvard Medical School and Boston University, though neither school allowed her to earn a degree. She was particularly discriminated against in her histology class, where she was barred from speaking to her male classmates for fear of "contamination." As an anatomy student at Boston University in 1925, she published her first scientific paper on studies of ox heart muscles with Alexander Begg. She applied to the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and was accepted as a full-degree candidate. She completed her MD degree in 1927 at Johns Hopkins, where she then remained for one year as a cardiology fellow and for two years as a pediatrics intern. While at Hopkins, she received two Archibald Fellowships, spanning 1927-1930.
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