Mary Ellen Avery

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Mary Ellen Avery, 2004

Mary Ellen Avery , called Mel Avery, (born May 6, 1927 in Camden , † December 4, 2011 in West Orange ) was an American pediatrician . In 1959, she discovered the cause of infant respiratory distress syndrome (IRDS) in newborns and thus enabled the development of therapies.

Life

Avery grew up in Moorestown, where her father owned a factory and her mother was the assistant director of a high school. She first studied chemistry at Wheaton College (graduated in 1948, summa cum laude ) and then medicine at Johns Hopkins University until 1952 (as one of 4 female students out of a total of 90 new students). She actually wanted to study medicine at Harvard Medical School right away, but they did not accept women until 1949. Sick of tuberculosis, she spent some in Europe. Her own illness aroused her interest in the function of the lungs. After completing her specialist training in pediatrics at Johns Hopkins University (internship, residency), she went to Harvard Medical School on a research fellowship . There Avery discovered in 1957 that IBS in premature babies was caused by a lack of surfactant in the lungs. At the time, IBS was one of the main causes of death in premature babies. In 1960 she became Assistant Professor of Paediatrics at the Johns Hopkins, in charge of the Premature Baby Care Unit, then went to McGill University as Professor and Head of Paediatrics and Chief Physician of the Montreal Children's Hospital, and from 1974 was Professor of Paediatrics ( Thomas Morgan Rotch Professor ) at Harvard Medical School and first woman to head a specialist department at this clinic as chief physician. Until 1985, Avery was the Physician in Chief of the Boston Children's Hospital. She founded the joint neonatology program at her clinic with the Beth Israel and Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston.

After resigning from her position in 1985, she worked for UNICEF worldwide in campaigns for poliomyelitis vaccination and oral rehydration therapy for diarrhea .

In 1968 she received the Mead Johnson Award for Research in Pediatrics, the Trudeau Medal of the American Lung Association in 1984 and the National Medal of Science in 1991 . In 1973 she was admitted to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and in 1994 to the National Academy of Sciences , of which she was president in 2003. In 2005 she received the John Howland Award , the American Pediatric Society's highest honor. She was president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science .

She remained unmarried all her life.

Fonts (selection)

as an author
  • together with H. William Taeusch, Roberta A. Ballard, Alexander J. Schaffer: Schaffer and Avery's Diseases of the Newborn . 6th edition. Saunders Books, Philadelphia PA 1991. ISBN 0-7216-5751-6 . (later udT: "Avery's diseases of the newborn")
  • together with Barry D. Fletcher: Lung and its Disorders in the Newborn Infant (= Major problems in clinical pediatrics; 1). 4th edition. Saunders, Philadelphia PA 1981. ISBN O-7216-1462-0.
as editor
  • with Lewis R. First: Pediatric Medicine . 2nd Edition. Lippincott, Williams and Wilkins, Baltimore MD 1994. ISBN 0-683-00293-7 .

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ ME Avery, J. Mead: Surface properties in relation to atelectasis and hyaline membrane disease. In: AMA journal of diseases of children. Volume 97, Number 5, Part 1, May 1959, pp. 517-523, ISSN  0096-6916 . PMID 13649082 .


personal data
SURNAME Avery, Mary Ellen
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American medic
DATE OF BIRTH May 6, 1927
PLACE OF BIRTH Camden, New Jersey
DATE OF DEATH 4th December 2011
Place of death West Orange