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The retirement years of Doctor Helen B. Taussig: an intersection of art and medicine

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 July 2023

Richard D. Mainwaring Open the ORCID record for Richard D. Mainwaring [Opens in a new window]  and
Stephanie Mainwaring
Richard D. Mainwaring*
Affiliation:
Division of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery, Stanford University School of Medicine, Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, Stanford, CA, USA
Stephanie Mainwaring
Affiliation:
Division of Pediatric Cardiac Surgery, Stanford University School of Medicine, Lucile Packard Children’s Hospital at Stanford, Stanford, CA, USA
*
Corresponding author: Richard D. Mainwaring; Email: mainwaring@stanford.edu
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Abstract

Dr Helen B. Taussig (1898–1986) worked a paediatric cardiologist at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland from 1930 to 1963. Dr Taussig would become world-renowned for her contributions to the systemic-to-pulmonary artery shunt to treat congenital heart patients with cyanosis. This shunt would eventually be named after the surgeon/cardiologist as the Blalock–Taussig shunt. Dr Taussig’s name was also attached to the description of one form of double outlet right ventricle called the Taussig-Bing malformation. Dr Taussig ultimately received the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1964 as a testimony to her life-long contributions to the field of congenital heart surgery.

In 1963, Dr Taussig retired from clinical practice but continued her teaching and academic pursuits at Johns Hopkins for another 14 years. Upon her “second retirement” in 1977, she moved to Kennett Square, PA. This paper will review the retirement years of Dr Helen Taussig and the curious intersection between art and medicine.

Keywords

CardiologyCardiac surgeryBlalock-Taussig shunt
Type
Original Article
Information
Cardiology in the Young , Volume 34 , Issue 2 , February 2024 , pp. 334 - 347
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Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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