Spotlight

Murdina M. Desmond, MD

Throughout her career, Murdina (Ina) Desmond made significant contributions to the science of pediatric and neonatal medicine. As first head of the newborn section at Baylor College of Medicine, she laid groundwork and fostered the growth of the section to the world–class neonatal care program it is today.

Dr. Desmond was born in the Hebrides Islands of Scotland in 1916, and her family immigrated to the United States when she was 7 years old. After graduating from Smith College in 1938, she enrolled at Temple School of Medicine and obtained her M.D. in 1942, just 6 months after the attack on Pearl Harbor. With her internship and 6 months of pediatric residency behind her, Dr. Desmond joined the US Naval Reserve as a physician and actively served through the war. Postwar, she completed her pediatric training and a fellowship in newborn research. After her marriage to Jim Desmond, she joined the faculty at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston. At that time, Baylor was one of only two buildings in the Texas Medical Center. The Pediatric Department consisted of 4 faculty and 2 residents. In 1950, Baylor affiliated with Jefferson Davis Hospital and a newborn service was established.

Under Dr. Desmond’s leadership the service grew rapidly during the baby-boom years of the 1950s and ’60s. At the Jefferson Davis Hospital, her research activities described unique aspects of congenital and epidemic bacterial infections of the neonate, the effects of maternal disease on the newborn, and her pioneering work involving neurologic assessment. The latter work resulted in grant awards by the Hartford Foundation, beginning in 1960, to establish a transitional care nursery. In this new environment, her classic studies of newborn behavior and morbidity in the hours immediately following birth were performed. In 1967, the Children’s Bureau established a program for high-risk maternal-infant care, which included an intensive care unit and follow-up clinics.

Dr. Desmond transferred her activities to Texas Children’s Hospital in 1972 to head the new Developmental Pediatrics Center, and leadership of the Newborn Section passed to the able direction of Jack Rudolph. In 1987, Dr. Desmond retired and, over the next several years, wrote her personal account of the historic relationships of newborn medicine and American society (Newborn medicine and society: European background and American practice (1750-1975), Eakin Press, 1998).

Dr. Desmond has received many honors including the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Apgar Award and the Texas Pediatric Society’s Sidney Kalliski Award. She continues to amaze younger colleagues with her unflagging enthusiasm and intellectual curiosity, and she encourages students and residents to enter into a career of neonatology—“a fascinating and complex field of endeavor.”

Students, colleagues, and friends of Murdina Desmond are encouraged to contact her in care of NeonatalNews.Net.