Johns Hopkins has been a leader in paediatric cardiology for over 85 years. In the 1940s, Dr Helen Taussig began training fellows in paediatric cardiology at Johns Hopkins at a time when the diagnosis and treatment of CHD were in the earliest stage. Under her leadership, the fellowship developed a strong foundation that has continued to evolve to meet the current needs of learners and educators. In the current era, the Johns Hopkins programme implements the current theories of adult education and actively engages our fellows in learning as well as teaching. The programme uses techniques such as flipped classroom, structured case-based small-group learning, observed and structured clinical examination, simulations, and innovative educational technology. These strategies combined with our faculty and rich history give our fellows a unique educational experience.

The conventional history of paediatric cardiology teaches that it was Helen Taussig who founded the cardiac clinic for children at the Harriet Lane Home of the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine in 1930, when Edwards Park appointed her director of the clinic.1,2 However, the story was more complex than that, and involved the collaboration of institutions and the frustrations, doubts, and passions of both Park and Taussig. In this article, I explore the history in more depth through published works, and material preserved at the McGill University Archives, the Rockefeller Foundation Archives, and the Alan Chesney Medical Archives at Johns Hopkins.

Creating eponyms for surgical procedures or medical discoveries can be a simple objective process of attaching names of innovators. Some eponyms, however, have a controversial history. Undertaking the first systemic-to-pulmonary arterial shunt required the combined efforts of Helen Taussig, Vivien Thomas, and Alfred Blalock. In this review, I attempt to look beyond the mechanics of attributing the eponym to the larger social history surrounding the term.