• She was born on June 7, 1909, in Westfield, New Jersey.
• Apgar focused on a career in the medical industry due to her two brother's medical problems. (One died due to tuberculosis, and the other lived with a chronic illness.)
• In 1929, Apgar earnt a degree in zoology, and in the same year, she began her medical training at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons.
• She obtained her MD in 1933 and began a two-year surgical internship. She was advised to make a career in a new field of study, anesthesiology.
• She later became the director of the newly established division of anesthesia at the Presbyterian Hospital.
• In 1949, she became the first female to hold a full professorship in anesthesiology at P&S, affording her more time to do research.

Virginia Apgar noticed that although infants mortality declined between 1930 and 1950, the death rate for babies in the first 24 hours after birth stayed the same.

Apgar began recording the differences between healthy newborns and newborns requiring medical attention. She created ...