|
| Alumni Affairs 1997 Recipient - Margaret C. Heagarty, MD (Class of 1959)  Dr. Margaret Heagarty is not afraid to challenge people to do good, including herself. A leading researcher of pediatric AIDS and the effects of cocaine abuse in unborn children, Dr. Heagarty is director of pediatrics at Harlem Hospital Center in New York and professor of pediatrics at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. "Whether a newborn infant afflicted with crack, a child injured on the playground, or an otherwise healthy child in the Harlem community, Maggie Heagarty has been an advocate for each and every child," says Dr. John Driscoll, chair of pediatrics and director of Babies and Children’s Hospital, Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center. Growing up in West Virginia, the daughter of a doctor who worked in the coal fields, Margaret Heagarty had no idea she would one day become a doctor herself and serve one of the sickest urban populations in the United States. After completing her first two years at WVU’s Two-year School of Medicine in 1959 (one of only two women in this 31-member class), she received her MD from the University of Pennsylvania and completed a residency at St. Christopher’s Hospital in Philadelphia. She accepted a fellowship in child health at Harvard, followed by a position as director of pediatric ambulatory care at New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center. Dr. Heagarty came to her current positions at Harlem Children’s Hospital and the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1978. Dr. Heagarty introduced modern neonatology to the pediatric unit at Harlem Children’s Hospital where the neonatal mortality rate was more than three times the national average. Slowly she was able to help reduce that rate to one more comparable with New York City as a whole. Among the unit’s innovative programs are ones dealing with violence and teenage pregnancy. She may be best known for making a national issue of the plight of cocaine-exposed "boarder babies" and helping to establish a pediatric AIDS unit and group home for HIV-infected children. The list of her honors, awards, organizational affiliations, publications, and presentations is infinite. She is also an effective and inspirational public speaker, which was evident when she was a guest speaker at the New York City Central Park memorial for Princess Diana this past September. Dr. Heagarty met Diana when the Princess visited Harlem Hospital’s pediatric AIDS unit in 1989 and again in 1995. In her speech, Dr. Heagarty noted that the Princess of Whales was ". . .one of the first to draw attention to the problems and needs of those with the disease both in her own country and here," adding that she "picked up, cuddles and embraced the children at a time when most were afraid to even be in their presence." Dr. Margaret Heagarty lives her vision to improve the lives of the community’s children. "Someone like me, indeed all of us, has one of two choices. I could, I suppose, say that it’s too much, it’s hopeless, and besides it’s not my fault. . . Or I can, as I do, take the other position—the one that says only human cowardice would allow me to walk away from these children. . . Maybe we canot fix the entire health care or education system, but I think we could fix that part in our immediate environment if we put our collective minds and energies to it. . . That’s what I think we all must do—put our minds to it." We are proud to have Dr. Margaret C. Heagarty as part of the family of the West Virginia University School of Medicine, and privileged to honor her as our "Distinguished Alumna" for 1997. Special thanks to Kristen Watson, Office of External Relations, Columbia University Health Sciences Division, for information used in this article. |
|||