As a hospital that specializes in the care of women and infants, we love recognizing women who helped us get to where we are today. In honor of Women’s History month, we’d like to highlight three women whose contributions to healthcare are still applicable in today’s modern medicine.
In the late 1960s, Margaret Crane was working as a graphic designer for a pharmaceutical company when she noticed pregnancy tests being processed in a lab—tests that were only available to doctors. At the time, women had to provide urine samples to their physicians, who would then send them to a laboratory for analysis, leaving patients to wait anxiously for results.
Recognizing an opportunity to give women more control over their reproductive health, Crane designed a test that could be used at home. When she first proposed the idea to a production company, she was rejected due to fears that it would cut into physicians’ profits. Undeterred, she continued refining her design and eventually found a manufacturer willing to produce it at a fraction of the cost. Thanks to her persistence and innovation, the modern at-home pregnancy test was born, empowering millions of women worldwide with quick and private results.
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Inventor of the At Home Pregnancy Test
Virginia Apgar initially aspired to be a surgeon, but despite graduating fourth in her class at Columbia University and earning a surgical internship, she was discouraged from pursuing this path. The chair of surgery instead urged her to specialize in anesthesia, believing she had the energy and aptitude to make a significant impact in this emerging field.
During her work in obstetric anesthesia, Apgar made her greatest contribution to medicine—the Apgar Score. Introduced in 1952 and published in 1953, this simple yet revolutionary assessment evaluates a newborn’s transition to life outside the womb by measuring heart rate, respiratory effort, muscle tone, reflex response, and color. Each category receives a score from 0 to 2, with the total indicating the baby’s overall health. Apgar later refined the system to assess the effects of maternal anesthesia on newborns. Today, the Apgar Score remains a fundamental tool in neonatal care, saving countless lives by ensuring immediate medical attention for infants in distress.
Source: NIH – Dr. Virginia Apgar
Madame Marie Curie, one of the most renowned women in science, was awarded two Nobel Prizes—one in Physics and one in Chemistry—for her groundbreaking work on radioactivity. In 1895, her fellow Nobel laureate, Wilhelm Roentgen, discovered X-rays, which quickly became a vital medical tool for imaging bones. As World War I began, Curie saw the need to bring this technology to the battlefield, developing mobile X-ray units powered by gasoline generators. She secured funding for 20 of these units and trained 150 women to operate them, revolutionizing wartime medical care.
Curie’s contributions extended far beyond the war, laying the foundation for modern medical imaging. Today, X-ray technology is essential in healthcare, particularly in mammography, where low-dose X-rays detect breast cancer early, improving survival rates. Thanks to pioneers like Curie, medical imaging continues to save lives every day.
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