Legends of Neonatology

Legends of Neonatology
Gala and Awards Ceremony

February 22, 2012 – 7:00 p.m.
(complimentary with your full registration)

The Neonatology Hall of Fame was established in 2007. Since its inception, The Legends Gala and Awards Ceremony have honored remarkable individuals whose efforts have added so much to the care of the critically-ill neonate.

Lilly M. Dubowitz, MD, MRCP, FRCP
Lilly Dubowitz was born in 1930 in Budapest, Hungary, and received her baccalaureate in Budapest in 1948. She originally enrolled in the engineering faculty to study mechanical engineering but this effort was rather short lived, as her mother wished her to join her surviving family from Vienna, who emigrated at the outset of the war to Shanghai and after the war to Australia. Following her arrival in Australia she decided to switch to medicine with the help of a scholarship. After qualifying in medicine in 1956 and after her initial house jobs, she was sent for further training in endocrinology to London in 1958. Not long after her arrival, a chance encounter with the man who subsequently became her husband, led her to change course again. Soon after her marriage, her husband was offered a very attractive job in the Department of Child Health in Sheffield. There she encountered some administrative difficulties in transferring her MRC research grant, so she decided to fill in some time accepting a short-term senior resident post in pediatrics. She became “hooked” on the subject and as they say, the rest is history. Under the tutelage of Professor Illingworth she developed a strong interest in infant development.

Dr. Dubowitz soon found working with neonates was a very suitable field and, as she was never certain of her own infants’ gestational age, work on this subject had great appeal. This effort began her research into gestational age and neurological assessment, a subject which she has explored for the last 40 years. Her eminent husband, Victor Dubowitz, also shared this interest so they were able to work together. The 1970 publication of the Assessment of Gestation in Newborn Infants in the Journal of Pediatrics attracted instant attention and wide application and soon became known as the Dubowitz Score. In the USA she was even “verbalized” to “Have you dubowitzed the baby!” The scoring charts were translated into many languages and the system was adopted worldwide, including many underdeveloped countries where the mothers’ dates were often uncertain and it was important to distinguish the nutritional small for dates infant for the premature infant. The original publication became a Citation Classic.

In subsequent to the work on gestational age she concentrated on developing practical schemes and charts for the neurological status of preterm and full term infants and also their subsequent evolution. For this work, Dr. Lilly Dubowitz is being cited as a “Legend of Neonatology.”

M. Jeffrey Maisels, MB, BCh, DSc
Dr. Maisels received his medical degree at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg, South Africa. He moved to the United States in 1966 and completed his residency training in pediatrics at the Boston Children’s Hospital and his subspecialty training in neonatal-perinatal medicine at the Harvard Medical School, Laboratory for Neonatal Research, Boston Lying-In Hospital, where he performed his first studies on neonatal jaundice. From 1969-71 he was a research hematologist and Lieutenant Colonel in the US Army Medical Corps at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, and from 1972-86 he was Chief of the Division of Newborn Medicine and Professor of Pediatrics at the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center of the Pennsylvania State University College of Medicine, Hershey, Pennsylvania. In 1986 he became Chairman of the Department of Pediatrics, William Beaumont Hospital, and is currently Professor and Chair, Department of Pediatrics of the new Oakland University William Beaumont School of Medicine and Physician-In-Chief, Beaumont Children’s Hospital. Dr. Maisels has served as a member of the Committee on Fetus and Newborn of the American Academy of Pediatrics and as Chairman of the Sub-Board, Neonatal / Perinatal Medicine of the American Board of Pediatrics. From 1997-2006 he was an associate editor of the Yearbook of Neonatal and Perinatal Medicine and he currently serves on the editorial board of Pediatrics. Dr. Maisels is recognized internationally for his studies in neonatal jaundice and his publications on this topic which extend over 40 years. He is the author or co-author of over 200 research publications and chapters in books and he recently co-edited a book entitled “Care of the Jaundiced Neonate.” He is the recipient of the Douglas K. Richardson Award of The Society for Pediatric Research for lifetime contributions to pediatric research and the 2007 Virginia Apgar Award of the American Academy of Pediatrics for contributions to perinatal medicine.

Jen-Tien Wung, MD, FCCM
Jen-Tien Wung, MD, is a Professor of Clinical Pediatrics at Columbia University, New York, and a neonatal intensivist where he has directed respiratory care at the Columbia NICU since 1974. He received his medical degree from Taipei Medical University in 1966. He came to the United States shortly afterward and did his residencies in obstetrics-gynecology and anesthesiology, and a fellowship in combined pediatrics and neonatal intensive care medicine at Columbia in 1973. Dr. Wung is board certified in critical care medicine and anesthesiology. Dr. Wung is best known for having pioneered 1) nasal CPAP therapy, 2) gentler and kinder ventilation with preservation of spontaneous breathing and permissive hypercarbia, 3) the management of infants with persistent pulmonary hypertension of neonate (PPHN) without hyperventilation, 4) the management for infants with congenital diaphragmatic hernia using gentle ventilation, delayed surgery and no prophylactic chest tubes, 5) Laryngeal mask airway (LMA) for infant with Pierre Robin sequence and 6) technique of one-lung ventilation in neonates. His novel thinking on ventilatory care has truly made him legendary among neonatologists. He has had Visiting Professorships and Invited Lectures and delivered more than 200 lectures related to neonatal respiratory care in over 20 countries and 54 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters. He has won numerous awards, including the “Thank God for Jen Wung Award” from the Neonatal Parents’ Support Network in 1995, “The First Annual Physician of the Year Award” from the Department of Nursing in 2000, the Distinguished Citizen Award (in Medicine) from hometown I-Chu, Chia-Yi, Taiwan, in 2000, and Outstanding Achievement Award from American Chinese Medical Association of New Jersey in 2005. A videotape “Respiratory Management of Neonatal RDS,” was awarded the first prize in the 2nd International Video Congress “The Newborn through Pictures” in Turin, Italy, in 1989.

Neonatology Hall of Fame Past Honorees

The late Virginia Apgar
Mary Ellen Avery
Robert Bartlett
Forrest M. Bird
John A. Clements
Maria Delivoria-Papadopoulos
Stanley J. Dudrick
Avroy Fanaroff
George Gregory
Marshall Klaus
Jerold Lucey
William Norwood
William OH
Lucille Ann Papile
Abraham M. Rudolph
Mildred Stahlman