In this episode of Biographers in Conversation, Patricia Meisol chats with Dr Gabriella Kelly-Davies about her choices while crafting A Heart Afire: Helen Brook Taussig’s Battle Against Heart Defects, Unsafe Drugs, and Injustice in Medicine. A deeply moving biography, it chronicles the life of pioneering paediatrician and heart specialist Helen Taussig. Known as the ‘mother of paediatric cardiology’, the indomitable Helen Taussig was also a patient activist and a relentless advocate for global health.
A Heart Afire
In A Heart Afire, Patricia Meisol renders a deeply moving portrait of Helen Taussig (1898–1986). A gracious, but wilful female doctor in a man’s world, Helen Taussig was first to diagnose heart defects in dying infants and in 1944, she convinced a surgeon to try her idea to fix the most common problem, setting off heart surgery.
Helen Taussig developed the Blalock-Taussig-Thomas shunt (along with Alfred Blalock and Vivien Thomas) for infants with congenital heart defects. She also famously gathered and publicised evidence linking thalidomide to birth defects, leading to US drug safety laws.
Helen never stopped overseeing her patients, establishing the collaborative patient care model still used today. In the second half of the twentieth century, she played a leading role in protecting Americans from unnecessary treatments and unsafe drugs.
Dr. Helen Taussig’s work saved ‘blue babies’ and made her the mother of paediatric cardiology
Laura Williamson, American Heart Association News
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, A Heart Afire chronicles Helen’s ambition, tenacity and formidable work ethic. As Patricia Meisol shows, Helen Taussig not only saved lives but also set a bold precedent for other female 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. It also shows how views of female doctors have evolved since the early twentieth century. Patricia reveals Helen Taussig as an authentic American hero, one who embodies the Emersonian ethic of developing oneself, following the processes of nature, and serving the public.
Helen Brooke Taussig took the best job available for a female doctor in 1930
… caring for dying babies.
She discovered how to save them.
She didn’t stop there.
A fiercely independent thinker, Helen 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.
A Heart Afire is a compelling tribute to a true trailblazer whose legacy continues to inspire generations of doctors. The biography shows how Helen’s singular interest in doing right by patients was a guiding light in her life, a lesson that is so valuable for all of us.
Patricia’s intimate portrayal of Helen Taussig illuminates the paediatrician’s remarkable medical achievements and reveals her unwavering commitment to patient care. Helen’s relentless pursuit of scientific truth, coupled with her compassionate approach to patients, has left an enduring impact on the field of medicine.
Dr Helen Taussig
Hopkins Medical Archives
By fearlessly challenging the status quo and advocating for the rights of vulnerable people, we’re reminded of the importance of empathy, perseverance and a relentless pursuit of knowledge. Helen Taussig’s legacy serves as a beacon of hope. It reinforces the power of science biography to illuminate the complex interplay between character, science and society.
Praise for A Heart Afire: Helen Brook Taussig’s Battle Against Heart Defects, Unsafe Drugs, and Injustice in Medicine
An enormous work—and, indeed, achievement—covering a life that explores most of the twentieth century. This impressive piece of research is not just about one woman, but also about the health of a nation and global developments in science and medicine.
Claire Brock, Associate Professor, University of Leicester; author of British Women Surgeons and Their Patients, 1860–1918
A masterfully told story. Patricia Meisol’s exciting and entertaining account of Helen Brooke Taussig's achievements is accessible for a general readership and will interest historians and doctors too.
Thomas Schlich, James McGill Professor in the History of Medicine, McGill University; co-editor of Technological Change in Modern Surgery
Exquisitely told with a penetrating eye for detail and the telling anecdote, Patricia Meisol’s biography of Helen Taussig is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of medicine and the twentieth century struggles of women to break through the profession's glass ceiling. What emerges from these pages is nothing less than the birth of modern heart surgery.
Jonathan Bor, The Baltimore Sun
About Patricia Meisol
Patricia Meisol is a narrative nonfiction writer and former investigative journalist. She also served in the US Department of Health and Human Services. In a writing career spanning over 25 years, Patricia Meisol has often profiled women who take extraordinary action to change their lives and the world around them.
Among her portraits is that of a woman diagnosed with chronic fatigue who discovered she had an operable brain malformation; her story helped thousands of other misdiagnosed patients obtain the same cure.
Another narrative traced the life of a 21-year-old woman throughout the afternoon she fatally shot her father. It led hundreds of readers to share stories of imprisonment and sexual abuse and demand better child protection laws. The woman was never prosecuted. And Patricia’s investigation of student loan fraud, prompted by young women victims of unscrupulous schools, led to federal racketeering charges and jail for school and bank officials.
Patricia’s portfolio also includes extensive reporting on the business and delivery of health care and the people and institutions that provide it. She is the winner of national writing awards for reporting on health, race and higher education, and victims of violence, and is a five-time nominee for the Pulitzer Prize.
A former feature writer and business reporter for the Baltimore Sun and a staff writer covering higher education and criminal courts for the St. Petersburg Times, her long-form narratives also have been published in the New York Times, Washington Post and other media. After leaving journalism in 2005, she earned a master’s degree in public management from the University of Maryland School of Public Policy and for five years developed health care finance policy for the Centres for Medicare & Medicaid.
To learn more about Patricia Meisol visit her website:
Additional Reading
Helen B. Taussig, MD, 1898-1986
The Changing Face of A Strong Woman
Media Coverage
Pediheart Podcast, The extraordinary life of Professor Helen Brooke Taussig, with Robert H. Pass, MD.
Guest post, They Called Us Girls newsletter.
WYPR 88.1 Baltimore Midday with Tom Hall.
Washington Independent Review of Books with Laura Fisher Kaiser.