Apgar, Virginia (1909–1974)

US physician and anaesthetist. Best known for pioneering anaesthesia relating to childbirth, she developed the Agpar Score in 1952 to evaluate the condition of newborn babies. In 1938 Agpar created the first department of anaesthesiology, at Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, where she was the first woman to head both a department and to hold a full professorship in anesthesiology. She took an executive position with the National Foundation-March of Dimes in 1959, and spent the rest of her life fostering public support for birth defect research.