All her life Virginia Apgar loved to learn new things. It was her greatest joy.
She was born into a musical family in Westfield, New Jersey. Her father was an amateur musician who loved holding family concerts in the living room. Virginia grew up playing violin, cello, and viola.
As a young girl she also developed an intense interest in medicine. In high school, she was a strong student in the sciences but almost flunked her cooking classes. She graduated from Mount Holyoke and went on to receive a medical degree from the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University.
After two rough years in private practice—people were not used to a female surgeon and it didn’t help that there was a Great Depression on—Dr. Apgar returned to school and switched to the field of anesthesiology. This was a new field for doctors; prior to that time nurses had been the experts. After several years of study she received her certification. She became anesthesiologist-in-chief at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital and eventually became professor of anesthesiology at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia. She was the first woman with a professorship at her old school.
Always curious and always wanting to learn more, it was at this time of her life she began studying the use of anesthesia in childbirth.
Hospitals are busy places filled with caring people who all wish they had more time. A baby is born, wrapped warmly, and carried off to the hospital nursery which is filled with noisy, squirming newborns. It might be a few minutes but it might be several hours before someone notices that the quiet baby in the corner needs special medical attention. By then it might be too late.
Virginia Apgar’s scoring system changed all of that. At one, five, and, if needed, ten minutes after birth a baby is evaluated in five areas: breathing, heart rate, overall color, muscle tone (activity), and reflexes. The baby is given a score of zero to two in each of those categories. A total score of 7-10 is considered normal. A newborn with a score of 4-7 might need some medical attention. A baby with apgars of 3 and below requires immediate emergency medical care.
She was highly respected in the medical field, and it seems that everyone who knew her had a favorite “Ginny” story to tell.
Once, one of her patients was a science teacher who made violins. Not satisfied with just teaching the subject to high school students, she wanted to see how the principles of science could be used to make a better instrument. The patient even brought one of her violins to the hospital to show Dr. Apgar.
Virginia listened to her, looked over the violin, and just had to try it. Suddenly an entire hospital wing was filled with beautiful music. She was amazed at the quality of the sound. Then and there, Virginia decided she had to make her own stringed instruments.
A few weeks later, after a successful operation and the patient had healed, Virginia started taking lessons from her. She added tools and a workbench to her apartment bedroom. Laboring from midnight to 2 a.m. (Virginia didn’t have much free time), over the next few months she produced a violin, mezzo violin, cello and viola.
Another time Virginia found out that her favorite anesthetic agent for delivery was not as completely safe as she thought. Researchers had discovered that the agent caused a slight but significant depression in newborns. When Virginia heard this she was shocked. Right away she changed her procedures. She was scheduled to speak to a luncheon that week. Noted for her humor, she told everyone after they had finished eating about her decision and added for good measure, “There goes my favorite gas.”
Virginia was in high demand as a lecturer. When trips took her to different cities, she would take along her cello or viola, find a local chamber music group, and join the group for a night of playing. She loved fishing, golf, and stamp collecting. When trips took her abroad, she used them as a good opportunity to fish. She had cast her rod in the salmon streams of Scotland and off the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. After the age of fifty she started taking flying lessons. Her great dream was someday to fly under the George Washington Bridge.
In 1994, the U.S. Postal Service released a stamp honoring Dr. Apgar at the annual meeting of the American Academy of Pediatrics. As a part of the celebrations, a group of four physicians/musicians played some of Virginia’s favorite music. They performed during the luncheon when that year’s Apgar Award in Perinatal Medicine was presented and again that afternoon at the stamp's unveiling. To make it special, they played on the four instruments that she had made.