A Heart Afire: Helen Brooke Taussig's Battle Against Heart Defects, Unsafe Drugs, and Injustice in Medicine...

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Patricia Meisol

A Heart Afire

Helen Brooke Taussig's Battle Against Heart Defects, Unsafe Drugs, and Injustice in Medicine...

Patricia Meisol

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Hardback

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English

MIT Press
12 December 2023

Biography: science, technology & engineering; Cardiovascular medicine; History of science

A deeply compelling biography of the pioneering children's heart doctor Helen Taussig, who helped start heart surgery and became a global force against preventable suffering.

A deeply compelling biography of the pioneering children's heart doctor Helen Taussig, who helped start heart surgery and became a global force against preventable suffering.

In A Heart Afire, Patricia Meisol renders a moving portrait of the indomitable pediatrician and global patient activist Helen Taussig (1898-1986), who famously gathered and publicized evidence linking thalidomide to birth defects, leading to US drug safety laws. Taussig also developed the Blalock-Taussig shunt (along with Alfred Blalock) for infants with congenital heart defects. Spanning Taussig's childhood in Boston, her struggle with dyslexia, her progressive hearing loss, her research contributions, and the founding of her own fledgling children's heart clinic, this book chronicles Taussig's ambition, tenacity, and formidable work ethic. As Meisol shows, Taussig not only saved lives, but also set a bold precedent for other women doctors in the twentieth century, who were largely excluded from medicine.

Meticulously researched and intimately told, A Heart Afire is unique in its use of a fifty-year-long campaign by Taussig's followers for a worthy memorial portrait and shows how views of women doctors have evolved. Meisol reveals Taussig as an authentic American hero, one who embodies the Emersonian ethic of developing oneself, following the processes of nature, and serving the public. A fiercely independent thinker, Taussig infused herself and her ideas into the medical culture, paving the way not only for other professional women but also for patients then and now to advocate for themselves. Offering an indispensable look at health care as a universal human right, A Heart Afire is a beacon and a blueprint for creating a more just and compassionate world of medicine.

By: Patricia Meisol
Imprint: MIT Press
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 236mm, Width: 159mm, Spine: 32mm
Weight: 584g
ISBN: 9780262048521
ISBN 10: 0262048523
Pages: 368
Publication Date: 12 December 2023
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Preface xi 1 The Woman in White 1 2 Digging for Clams 5 3 Hearts in the Bathtub 21 4 Little Choice 29 5 Lessons from Children (1930-1933) 39 6 Breakdown and Breakthrough 55 7 Naked on the Beach 67 8 Go Where You Are Wanted 83 9 On the Precipice 95 10 Convincing Blalock 105 11 The Dawn of Modern Heart Surgery 121 12 Paper Fight 135 13 Patients Flock to Baltimore 147 14 Hovering 161 15 Map to the New World 171 16 A House of Her Own 177 17 A Chess Game 191 18 The End of Rheumatic Fever 205 19 On Her Own Again 211 20 Dousing the Fire 225 21 Gifts from the Heart 237 22 Can Suffering Be Prevented? 245 23 If They had Seen What She had Seen 259 24 Portrait of a Physician 281 Acknowledgments 303 Notes 307 Index 337

Patricia Meisol is a narrative nonfiction writer and formal journalist who has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize multiple times. She previously served in the US Department of Health and Human Services.