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Presidential Medal of Freedom Recipient Helen B. Taussig
 Pediatric Cardiologist
1898 - 1986
DR. HELEN B. TAUSSIG
Awarded by
President Lyndon B. Johnson
September 14, 1964
Physician, physiologist, and embryologist, her fundamental concepts have made possible the modern surgery of the heart which enables countless children to lead productive lives.
Helen Brooke Taussig (standing, center) at Medal of Freedom Award ceremony with President Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1964
Helen Brooke Taussig, ca. 1940
Helen Taussig examining a child, her large boxed hearing aid is next to the child, ca. 1947
Helen Brooke Taussig
In 1930, Helen Brooke Taussig was appointed by Dr. Edwards A. Park, professor of pediatrics, to head his cardiac clinic.
Dr. Taussig soon began to study the cardiac manifestations of disease, and then her interest turned to congenital heart disease. Eventually she came to the realization that the major physiological problem in tetralogy of Fallot (the blue-baby syndrome) was lack of blood flow to the lung.
Although opinions vary as to the origins of the operation, Dr. Taussig remembered listening to a conversation in 1943 between Dr. Alfred Blalock and Dr. Edwards A. Park. The discussion had to do with the difficulty associated with cross-clamping the descending aorta to repair a coarctation. Dr. Park inquired,
Could you not use the carotid artery as a bypass? It is a long, straight artery and there are four vessels to the brain. Wouldn't it be possible to turn the carotid artery down and anastomose it to the aorta below the coarctation?
Dr. Taussig spoke up,
If you could put the carotid artery into the descending aorta, couldn't you put the subclavian artery into the pulmonary artery?
Regardless of the variance in the stories recounting the origination of the procedure; it is clear Blalock together with Vivien Thomas, continued to move forward with the problem of providing oxygen to the pulmonary artery. The shunt first tried at Vanderbilt ultimately provided the answer. The operation was first performed on a very ill, high-risk patient in 1944. Although the frail child died months later in a second operation, the child survived long enough to demonstrate the survival of a surgical procedure that would save the lives of tens of thousands of children.
In 1945, Helen Taussig and Alfred Blalock published a joint paper on the first three operations in the Journal of the American Medical Association; this publication had an immediate worldwide impact.
Dr. Taussig and Dr. Blalock made numerous clinical presentations and case demonstrations in both Europe and the United States. The success of the procedure attracted many patients to Johns Hopkins for treatment, and it also brought many physicians to learn the techniques of the procedure.
Dr. Taussig received international recognition and honors for her contributions to medicine, including the French Chevalier Legion d'Honneur , the Italian Feltrinelli Prize, the Peruvian Presidential Medal of Honor, and here at home, the Albert Lasker Medical Research Award, and the United States of America Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Helen Brooke Taussig with children at a South African clinic, 1970
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Medal History
