Metrics in Pediatrics and Medical Herstory: Dr. Virginia Apgar

keywords: metrics, pediatrics, medical history, Dr. Virginia Apgar

Metrics in Pediatrics and Medical History: Dr. Virginia Apgar

• Hospital-based practice her-story tidbit with Dr. Virginia Apgar and the APGAR metric for infants:

While working at “Sloane Hospital for Women with laboring and new mothers [Dr. Apgar noticed] that medical personnel had no standardized way to assess the health of newborn babies. Although mortality for children under a year old had been going down in the U.S. between the 1930s and 1950s, the rate of death among newborns had remained constant, in part because doctors weren't identifying babies who were at risk. In a 1953 paper, Apgar proposed a test to assess infant health on five criteria: heart rate, respiration, color, muscle tone, and reflex irritability. Within a few years, the test was becoming broadly adopted and had become known as the Apgar Score, a mnemonic learning aid based on its inventor's last name which stands for Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity, Respiration. Due to its effectiveness and simplicity, the Apgar Score was widely used by hospitals throughout the United States by the 1960s and is now used by doctors throughout the world.” [emphasis added]

References

• Herstory note is from A Mighty Girl blog.
• More about the Apgar score is and how it is used in practice (Medline article)

Related Information

• Are you an acupuncturist and want to learn more about working in labor and delivery (L&D)? Then check out the highly rated post-graduate studies on this subject with Claudia Citkovitz, PhD, LAc.
• For more about metrics and clinical outcome measures used in clinical practice, following the blogpost tag "metrics".
• For more about pediatrics in hospital practice for acupuncturists, use the search feature on this blog and type in "pediatrics". 

Did you find this information useful or interesting?
Subscribe to our email list for the latest updates and follow us
 on the public Facebook Page.

You can support this community-wisdom-sharing work by
 buying me a coffee or sponsoring a newsletter via our website.  Thank you.

www.thehospitalhandbook.com