Engineering Education “Today in History” Blog: Johns Hopkins hospital performs first open heart surgery
by Alice Agogino
closeAuthor: Alice Agogino
Name: Alice Agogino
Email: agogino@berkeley.edu
Site: http://www.me.berkeley.edu/faculty/agogino/
About: Alice M. Agogino is the Roscoe and Elizabeth Hughes Professor of Mechanical Engineering and is affiliated faculty at the Haas School of Business in their Operations and Information Technology Management Group. Her research interests include: community-based design; sustainable engineering; intelligent learning systems; information retrieval and data mining; multiobjective and strategic product design; nonlinear optimization; probabilistic modeling; intelligent control and manufacturing; sensor validation, fusion and diagnostics; wireless sensor networks; multimedia and computer-aided design; design databases; design theory and methods; MEMS/NEMS synthesis and computer-aided design; artificial intelligence and decision and expert systems; and gender/ethnic equity.
She has served in a number of administrative positions at UC Berkeley, including Chair of the Faculty Senate, Associate Dean of Engineering and Faculty Assistant to the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost in Educational Development and Technology. Prof. Agogino also served as Director for Synthesis, an NSF-sponsored coalition of eight universities with the goal of reforming undergraduate engineering education, and continues as PI for the NEEDS (www.needs.org) and SMETE.ORG digital libraries of courseware in science, mathematics, engineering and technology.
Prof. Agogino received a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of New Mexico (1975), M.S. degree in Mechanical Engineering (1978) from the University of California at Berkeley and Ph.D. from the Department of Engineering-Economic Systems at Stanford University (1984). Prior to joining the faculty at UC Berkeley, she worked in industry for Dow Chemical, General Electric and SRI International. She has authored over 150 scholarly publications; has won numerous teaching, best paper and research awards; and is a member of the National Academy of Engineering (NAE). At NAE she served on the Committee on Engineering Education, working on the Technologically Speaking and the Engineer 2020 projects. She is currently a member of the National Research Council's Board on Education and the Women in Academic Science Engineering Committee. She has supervised 66 MS projects/theses, 26 doctoral dissertations and numerous undergraduate researchers.See Authors Posts (877) · November 29th, 2012 · Add a Comment
Today in History – November 29, 1944 – doctors at Johns Hopkins performed the surgery that laid the foundation for today’s heart surgery, such as coronary bypass surgery. Working as a team, the Johns Hopkins Hospital’s chief surgeon, Dr. Alfred Blalock (left photo), African American surgical technician Vivien T. Thomas (center portrait), and pediatric cardiologist Dr. Helen Taussig (right photo) developed a method for improving the flow of oxygen into the blood by connecting one of the heart’s major arteries with another feeding into the lungs. First used on a young girl with a combination of heart defects that so starved her for oxygen that her skin was literally blue, it became known as the Blue Baby Operation.
All three members of the team continued to make huge contributions to medical research and practice. Alfred Blalock was elected to the National Academy of Science and received the Chevalier de la Legion d’Honneur, the Passano Award, the Matas Award, and the Albert Lasker Medical Research Award.
Dr. Taussig becamame one of the most influential and pioneering women in medicine, being considered the founder of pediatric cardiology. She has received widespread recognition and honors for her contributions to cardiology, including the French Chevalier Legion d’Honneur, the Italian Feltrinelli Prize, the Peruvian Presidential Medal of Honor, and the United States of America Medal of Freedom.
Vivien Thomas’ achievements became widely recognized as well. He supervised the surgical laboratories at Hopkins for over 35 years, and in 1976 he was appointed instructor in surgery at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. In 1976, he was awarded the honorary degree Doctor of Laws, by the Johns Hopkins University.
For more information, see the Engineering Pathway’s resources on biomedical engineering or go to the Biomedical Engineering and Bioengineering Education community site. Readers may also be interested in our resources on gender equity and African American Engineers and Scientists.
Also on this date in history in 1877, Thomas Edison demonstrates hand-cranked phonograph. See the November 21 blog on Edison’s announcement of his “taking machine” and the contrast with the release of “Toy Story”, the first full-length movie created entirely by computer animation. Or browse the Engineering Pathway‘s resources on Edison and digital music.
Tags: Aerospace Engineering · African American · BioEngineering and Biomedical Engineering · Biological Systems and Agricultural Engineering · Electrical Engineering · Engineering Management · Mechanical Engineering
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