Virginia Wouldn’t Slow Down: The Unstoppable Dr. Apgar and Her Life-Saving Invention

This portrait follows Dr. Virginia Apgar from a childhood in which she resisted limits placed on girls and women to her work in anesthesiology. During the Great Depression, she set aside her plan to become a surgeon because anesthesiology offered better employment prospects. While attending births and monitoring mothers’ health, she recognized a need to assess newborns’ condition. In 1949, she created a five-point scale that later became known as APGAR and was widely adopted in the United States and elsewhere.