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Helen Brooke Taussig, (May 24, 1898 - May 20, 1986) was an American paediatric cardiologist, working in Baltimore and Boston, who created the Blalock-Taussig shunt in cooperation with Dr. Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas.
Birth
She was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her father was Harvard economist Frank W. Taussig, and her mother Edith was one of the first students at Radcliffe College. Her mother died when Helen was 11
Education
Taussig graduated Cambridge School for Girls in 1917, then studied for two years at Radcliffe before earning a bachelor's degree from the University of California at Berkeley in 1921. She then studied at both Harvard Medical School and Boston University before pursuing her cardiac research at Johns Hopkins University.
Medicine
She did extensive work on anoxemia, or blue baby syndrome, which led to the development of the pioneering infant surgery first performed by Taussig and Dr. Alfred Blalock in 1944. She received a Lasker Award for her work. Taussig wrote the book Congenital Malformations of the Heart in 1947, and in 1959, was one of the first women to be awarded a full professorship at Johns Hopkins University. In 1964, she received the Medal of Freedom from President Lyndon Johnson. All of her achievements were reached despite her dyslexia, as well as her deafness throughout the latter part of her career.
External links
1898 births | 1986 deaths | Cardiologists | History of medicine
"Helen B. Taussig"