Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-t7fkt Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T20:15:03.249Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

The evolution of cardiac care for children in Washington, DC

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 September 2021

Richard A. Jonas*
Affiliation:
Children’s National Hospital, 111 Michigan Avenue NW, Washington, DC20010, USA
Gerard R. Martin
Affiliation:
Children’s National Hospital, 111 Michigan Avenue NW, Washington, DC20010, USA
*
Author for correspondence: R. A. Jonas, Children’s National Hospital, 111 Michigan Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20010, USA. Tel: +1 202-379-2850; fax: +1 202-318-524. E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract

Cardiac surgery for CHD was pioneered in Washington, DC by Charles Hufnagel and Edgar Davis working at Georgetown University and Children’s Hospital of the District of Columbia. Children’s Hospital, now Children’s National Hospital, had been established just 5 years after the end of the Civil War. In the 1950s, Davis and Hufnagel undertook many open-heart operations using the technique of surface cooling, hypothermia, and circulatory arrest. Hufnagel and Lewis Scott, who founded the cardiology department at Children’s, were trained in Boston by Gross and Nadas. Judson Randolph, also a trainee of Gross, introduced cardiac surgery using cardiopulmonary bypass and established the General Pediatric Surgery department at Children’s in the 1960s. The transition of hospital staffing from community-based private physicians to full-time hospital employees was often controversial but was complete by the turn of the millennium. The 21st century has seen continuing growth of the new Children’s National Heart Institute and consolidation of several congenital cardiac programmes in Washington, DC.

Type
Original Article
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Clinical Proceedings, Children’s Hospital of the District of Columbia 1970, 26 Number 7, Special Centennial IssueGoogle Scholar
The Story of Children’s Hospital: a remarkable journey 1994 Annual reportGoogle Scholar
Gross, RE, Hubbard, JP. Surgical ligation of a patent ductus arteriosus: report of first successful case. JAMA 1939; 112: 729731.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gross, RE, Hufnagel, CA. Coarctation of the aorta: experimental studies regarding its surgical correction. N Engl J Med 1945; 233: 287293.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Open Heart: the radical surgeons who revolutionized medicine 2010 Cooper DKC Kaplan Publishing, pages 249–258.Google Scholar
Hufnagel, CA, Harvey, WP, Rabil, PJ. Surgical correction of aortic insufficiency. Surgery 1954; 35: 673683.Google ScholarPubMed
Davis, C Jr, Dillon, RF, Fell, EH, Gasul, BM. Anomalous coronary simulating patent ductus arteriosus. JAMA 1956; 160: 10471050.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Open Heart: the radical surgeons who revolutionized medicine 2010 Cooper DKC Kaplan Publishing, pages 105–142.Google Scholar
The Children’s Hospital Arrow 1954, vol 19 issue 2:p3.Google Scholar
Children’s Hospital Arrow 1964. Annual report p3.Google Scholar
Children’s Times 1987, Fall edition p6.Google Scholar
Newsline Children’s Hospital National Medical Center 1989, vol 7 number 23:p2.Google Scholar
Children’s Newsline 1989, August edition p2.Google Scholar