Letter from Joan Dunkelberger to Virginia Apgar
Title:
Letter from Joan Dunkelberger to Virginia Apgar
Description:
In 1937, after nearly a year's residency training in anesthesiology, Apgar was invited back to Columbia-Presbyterian (where she had done her surgery internship) to set up and head a new division of anesthesia there. In this letter, she outlined her plan for the division to Whipple, director of the department of surgery.; NOTE: Handwritten text at top of first page illegible in original.
Collection:
Virginia Apgar Papers
Date Created:
1973-04-11
Genre:
correspondence
Rh Disease, 1970
Title:
Rh Disease, 1970
Description:
Speaking to the Seventh Annual Immunization Conference at the National Communicable Disease Center (now the Centers for Disease Control), Apgar reviewed the great progress made in the knowledge, treatment, and prevention of Rh disease. An immune reaction between a mother with Rh-negative blood type and fetus with Rh-positive type, Rh disease affected up to 12% of children born to Rh-negative women married to Rh-positive men, causing post-natal jaundice and anemia which often led to mental retardation, motor disabilities, and cerebral palsy.; Item is a photocopy.
Collection:
Virginia Apgar Papers
Date Created:
1970-03-26
Genre:
speeches
Letter from Virginia Apgar to L. Joseph Butterfield
Title:
Letter from Virginia Apgar to L. Joseph Butterfield
Description:
Butterfield and his residents at the University of Colorado Medical Center modified the order and wording of the Apgar score's five points, so that they spelled APGAR. This epigram form proved a useful teaching device, and Butterfield passed it along to Apgar. As this response indicated, Apgar was delighted by the innovation. By the late 1960s it had become the standard for Apgar score forms.
Collection:
Virginia Apgar Papers
Date Created:
1961-08-01
Genre:
correspondence
Letter from Ralph M. Waters to Virginia Apgar
Title:
Letter from Ralph M. Waters to Virginia Apgar
Description:
Waters established the first anesthesiology residency program at the University of Wisconsin in 1927, and Virginia Apgar was one of the residents in early 1937. When she became chief of the Division of Anesthesia at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital in 1938, she consulted her mentor on several issues. In this letter, Waters wrote to let Apgar know about an upcoming visit from Dr. Nesbit, an ear, nose, and throat specialist, and discussed the best way to handle the anesthesia for the surgery he would do while in New York. Waters' reference to cradle robbing may refer to the difficulty Apgar experienced in recruiting anesthesiology residents from the New York area.
Collection:
Virginia Apgar Papers
Date Created:
1939-1-6
Genre:
correspondence
Fifth Annual Report, Division of Anesthesia: 1942
Title:
Fifth Annual Report, Division of Anesthesia: 1942
Description:
Apgar reported on the teaching, clinical, and research activities of the Division of Anesthesia at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital during 1942. She noted the great increase in anesthesias given by medical staff (over 1700 more cases than in the previous year) and the ongoing staffing shortages (especially with many medical personnel enlisting in the military after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941). She suggested that senior dental students and surgical graduates could be added to the program to alleviate the staff problems.
Collection:
Virginia Apgar Papers
Date Created:
1943-02-15
Genre:
reports
Letter from Elsie R. Carrington to Virginia Apgar
Title:
Letter from Elsie R. Carrington to Virginia Apgar
Description:
In this letter, Carrington, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, asked Apgar for a brief contribution to a symposium on human teratogenesis.
Collection:
Virginia Apgar Papers
Date Created:
1965-10-22
Genre:
correspondence
Notes on Anesthesia
Title:
Notes on Anesthesia
Description:
Apgar put together this handbook for her medical students and anesthesiology residents at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital, in the absence of an adequate anesthesia textbook. It provided a concise outline of techniques and anesthetic agents used at the hospital during the 1940s, along with possible complications of anesthesia, and the hazards of explosion in the operating room.
Collection:
Virginia Apgar Papers
Date Created:
1949
Genre:
handbooks
Letter from L. Joseph Butterfield to Virginia Apgar
Title:
Letter from L. Joseph Butterfield to Virginia Apgar
Description:
Butterfield and his residents at the University of Colorado Medical Center modified the order and wording of the Apgar score's five points, so that they spelled APGAR. This epigram form proved a useful teaching device, and Butterfield passed it along to Apgar. By the late 1960s it had become the standard for Apgar score forms.
Collection:
Virginia Apgar Papers
Date Created:
1961-07-27
Genre:
correspondence
Speech given to the Bergen County March of Dimes chapter
Title:
Speech given to the Bergen County March of Dimes chapter
Description:
In this speech, Apgar demonstrated her direct, relaxed teaching style, combining personal anecdotes with clear information about the activities of the March of Dimes, and the current state of knowledge about common birth defects.; NOTE: Handwritten text at top of first page reads as follows: Oct-Dec 1959, Bergen County M.O.D., Substance of V.A.'s talk to Laymen.
Collection:
Virginia Apgar Papers
Date Created:
1959-10
Genre:
speeches
Operations notebook
Title:
Operations notebook
Description:
Apgar kept this notebook during her first semester at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons, noting the details of the surgeries she observed, including techniques, anesthesia used, and prognosis.; NOTE: Best quality scan that could be obtained.; Item is handwritten.
Collection:
Virginia Apgar Papers
Date Created:
1929-10
Genre:
notebooks
Letter from Virginia Apgar to Paul A. Harper
Title:
Letter from Virginia Apgar to Paul A. Harper
Description:
Sent in response to Harper's request for seminar outlines, this letter included the outlines, which demonstrate how Apgar conceptualized delivery-room problems after several decades' experience with them, and an essay, The Perinatal Problem, in which she discussed the need for a national medical education program in the emerging field of neonatology.
Collection:
Virginia Apgar Papers
Date Created:
1958-03-24
Genre:
correspondence
Anesthesia Report for the Surgical Executive Committee
Title:
Anesthesia Report for the Surgical Executive Committee
Description:
In this report, covering the second year of the Division of Anesthesia at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital, Apgar noted that the current anesthesia staff was not large enough to comfortably cover peak demand periods, and broached for the first time the issue of professional fees for physician-anesthesiologists. Both fees and staffing became major challenges for Apgar as chief of the division.
Collection:
Virginia Apgar Papers
Date Created:
1940-1-10
Genre:
reports
Human Congenital Anomalies, 1968: Sixth Baxter-Travenol Lecture of the International Anesthesia Research Society
Title:
Human Congenital Anomalies, 1968: Sixth Baxter-Travenol Lecture of the International Anesthesia Research Society
Description:
Speaking to the International Anesthesia Research Society in 1968, Apgar reviewed the progress made since 1960 in understanding how birth defects occur, especially regarding the genetic code.; Read at the 42nd Congress of the International Anesthesia Research Society, March 17-21, 1968, San Francisco, California.; Item is a photocopy.
Collection:
Virginia Apgar Papers
Date Created:
1968-07
Genre:
speeches
First Annual Anesthesia Report
Title:
First Annual Anesthesia Report
Description:
In 1938 Apgar became director of the new Division of Anesthesia at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital. In early 1939, she was able to give a good report on the division's first year of operation, including the addition of anesthesia residents to the staff, attending 940 surgeries, teaching medical students, and several research projects. In this first report, Apgar was optimistic about achieving the goals of the new division.
Collection:
Virginia Apgar Papers
Date Created:
1939-01
Genre:
reports
Letter from Karl A. Connell to Virginia Apgar
Title:
Letter from Karl A. Connell to Virginia Apgar
Description:
Connell Apparatus manufactured and serviced the anesthesia machines used at Presbyterian Hospital. During Apgar's first years as director of the Anesthesia Division, the hospital grappled with the problem of explosions resulting from accidental ignition of anesthesia gases in the operating room. It was not always clear where the sparks originated in these accidents, and Connell worked with the hospital staff to discover which equipment and materials were causing them. In this letter, Connell described a modification to the equipment and other methods to reduce the risk of sparking from static electricity.; Item is handwritten.
Collection:
Virginia Apgar Papers
Date Created:
1939-3-9
Genre:
correspondence
Statement by Virginia Apgar to the Subcommittee on Health, Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare
Title:
Statement by Virginia Apgar to the Subcommittee on Health, Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare
Description:
Representing the National Foundation-March of Dimes, Apgar testified about the importance of the federal funding of immunization programs then being considered by the Senate. She explained the tragic consequences of rubella (German measles) infection in the first trimester of pregnancy, and the need to start an immunization program before the next rubella epidemic, expected in 1970 or 1971. Funding would be needed not only for the vaccine itself, but for a wide distribution network, and an educational campaign.; Item is a photocopy.
Collection:
Virginia Apgar Papers
Date Created:
1969-06-30
Genre:
speeches
Constitution of the Aqualumni
Title:
Constitution of the Aqualumni
Description:
The first cohort of physicians who trained in anesthesiology with Dr. Ralph Waters organized a group dedicated to maintaining Waters' high standards of research, teaching and practice, and supporting each other as they established new specialty programs in the field. Apgar was elected a member in April 1938, under the original rule that six months of residency with Waters was sufficient qualification, if the resident continued to practice anesthesiology. The qualifications for membership were changed shortly afterwards, requiring two years of a three-year residency. Apgar was an active member of the group, which met annually in Madison, Wisconsin until Waters retired in 1947.
Collection:
Virginia Apgar Papers
Date Created:
1942-04-06
Genre:
constitutions
Letter from Virginia Apgar to Allen O. Whipple
Title:
Letter from Virginia Apgar to Allen O. Whipple
Description:
In this letter, Apgar addressed several of her early concerns as director of the Anesthesia Division, including professional fees for anesthesiologists attending surgery for private patients, the temporary ban on use of cyclopropane (her own first choice of anesthesia), and the need for a permanent research anesthesiologist to develop the research component of the division.
Collection:
Virginia Apgar Papers
Date Created:
1939-9-25
Genre:
correspondence
Fourth Annual Report, Division of Anesthesia
Title:
Fourth Annual Report, Division of Anesthesia
Description:
Here Apgar reported on the teaching, clinical, and research activities of 1941 in the new Division of Anesthesia at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital, emphasizing staffing shortages (especially with many medical personnel enlisting for military duty after the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941) and the Anesthesia Division budget as major concerns.
Collection:
Virginia Apgar Papers
Date Created:
1942-01
Genre:
reports
Genetics and Anesthesia
Title:
Genetics and Anesthesia
Description:
Apgar gave this talk at the Columbia College of Physicians and Surgeons Alumni Day in 1960. Less than a year into her new position with the National Foundation-March of Dimes, she chose to discuss the application of her new field of study, genetics, to the specialty she had worked in for several decades. The genetic disorders known as inborn errors of metabolism were very relevant to anesthesiology: inherited differences in various metabolic enzymes could have a great effect on a patient's response to anesthetics. Tests for enzyme deficiencies, done before an operation, could help avoid anesthesia complications.
Collection:
Virginia Apgar Papers
Date Created:
1960-04-22
Genre:
speeches

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