The American Heart Association (AHA) is celebrating its 100th year of working to improve the lives of people with cardiovascular disease. Among the key figures in the history of the nonprofit is Dr. Helen Taussig. During Women’s History Month 2024, the AHA profiled the life and career of the doctor whose work as a pediatric cardiologist has saved thousands of lives.
The woman who would one day be AHA’s first female president was born to college-educated parents in 1898. Her early life was riddled with hardship: her mother died when Taussig was 11, a bout of tuberculosis weakened her, dyslexia made reading challenging, and a case of whooping cause left her with progressively worsening hearing issues.
Despite the adversity, Taussig persevered and graduated from the University of California, Berkeley. When Harvard University informed her that it would not award a medical degree to a woman, she studied at Johns Hopkins University instead. Taussig intended to complete an internal medicine residency following her graduation from Johns Hopkins, but after spending a year working with adult cardiology patients, she elected to go into pediatrics.
Taussig got her start in pediatrics volunteering at the Harriet Lane Home for Invalid Children. She eventually took over leadership of the facility, and it was there that she developed her deep knowledge of pediatric cardiology. Unable to hear well enough to use a stethoscope, she diagnosed cardiologic conditions with her hands, using them to feel for irregular vibrations.
The insights she gained spurred her to partner with Dr. Alfred Blalock, Johns Hopkins’ chief surgeon, and his surgical assistant, Vivien Thomas, to develop an operation to save the lives of babies with a then-incurable condition known as cyanosis. It was Taussig who figured out that these so-called blue babies had impaired blood flow to the lungs, an issue that caused them to die of oxygen deprivation. The operation, which involves connecting the lungs to a coronary artery, was groundbreaking and has saved thousands of lives.
But she didn’t stop there. In the early ‘60s, when Taussig learned the FDA was poised to approve a drug that was supposedly safe but had caused severe birth defects in babies in Europe, she successfully lobbied the agency to ban its distribution.
In 1964, Taussig was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States. The next year, she became AHA’s first female president. During her tenure, she expanded the organization’s focus to include pediatric cardiology. Her work in the field earned her the moniker “The Mother of Pediatric Cardiology.”
Taussig retired from her practice in 1963. In 1986, at the age of 87, she died in a car accident. Today, the shunt operation she codeveloped remains in use, and her pioneering career as a female physician and pediatric cardiologist continues to inspire generations of doctors.