Edwards A. Park (December 30, 1877 – July 11, 1969) was an American pediatrician who established the pediatric heart disease clinic at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, along with other pediatric subspecialties.^[1] During his career, Park was Chief of Pediatrics at the Harriet Lane Home for two decades, and published articles on medical conditions such as rickets and lead poisoning.^[2] The contemporary pediatric department at Hopkins is still regulated in the same way that Park established. The Edwards A. Park Scholarship Fund at Johns Hopkins was built under his name upon his eightieth birthday by friends, colleagues and former students.^[3]

Early life

Park was born in Gloversville, New York, on December 30, 1877. His father was a local Congregational minister. Park attended Yale University and earned his B.A. degree in 1900. After graduation, Park declined to follow his father into a religious occupation. He instead debated choosing between a career in medicine and a career in teaching Greek. He eventually decided to pursue medicine shortly after graduating from Yale. Park first received his M.D. from the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1905 and then went on to become an intern at the Roosevelt Hospital in New York from 1905 to 1907. He spent the next two years as an intern at the New York Foundling Hospital, working for six months in pediatrics where Dr. John Howland was an attending physician.^[4] Park also spent several months at the City Hospital on Blackwell Island, where he cultivated pathological skills and insight crucial to his later research in rickets.^[5]

Career

Johns Hopkins

In 1919, Park returned to Baltimore, Maryland in the United States. Following his research with Dr. Howland, Park went to Yale where he took on the role as the Professor of Pediatrics for seven years. In 1927, Dr. Howland's death caused Park to return to Johns Hopkins to take over as the Professor of Pediatrics and Chief-of-Pediatrics. In 1946, Park was also named the Professor Emeritus of Pediatrics at the School of Medicine. As Chief-of-Pediatrics of the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Park established multiple specialty clinics under pediatrics, with tuberculosis, cardiac, endocrine, and psychiatric clinics bringing fame to the Harriet Lane Home.^[6] He was also known for his daily noon conferences with his staff where an intern, resident, and sub-specialist would all review a case. After they presented Park would question all parts, reviewing all steps and small details. Of his questions, one student described them as being "asked softly, hesitantly, almost apologetically, but each one was apropos, pointed and searching".^[4] His attention to detail also applied to all publications that came from the Harriet Lane Home, as Park wrote about 30 papers over his twenty years as Chief-of-Pediatrics and reviewed over 100 papers written by his staff.

The Harriet Lane Home

Park spent half of his life working at the Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland.

When Howland died in 1926, Park was inaugurated as the new Professor of Pediatrics who would oversee the operations of the Harriet Lane Home. Thus, Park became the successor of Howland and the third director of the Harriet Lane Home in the two decades that would follow (1926–1947). Six months after settling into his new position, Park realized that children in the Baltimore dispensaries were receiving significantly lower quality care compared to children who could afford to be treated at the hospital. Frustrated at this social phenomenon, Park went to Dr. Edward Carter, who was then a cardiologist in the Department of Medicine. Park asked Carter whether he would support the establishment of a pediatric clinic. On 1 December 1927, Park collaborated with the Rockefeller Institute and the Commonwealth Fund to set up a pediatric heart disease clinic at Johns Hopkins in the outpatient dispensary.^[7]

Before Park's arrival, the Harriet Lane Home was merely an obscure clinic where pediatrics was viewed as a specialty that held very little status. Although the full-time system had recently begun to flourish in the United States, it was difficult for most of the hospitals and clinics to adhere entirely to its principles. Under Howland, the university started to pour in intellectual and financial investments to a full-time pediatric system, but Park ultimately played the transitional role in ensuring the permanence of the system. Park invoked concerns about access to and cost of pediatric health care and advocated for a central focus surrounding a few particular diseases.^[5]

Research

An abnormal bone growth in a child's wrist due to rickets

Although Park's initial research interests revolved around cardiovascular physiology and cardiac disease, his research later made the most impact in the field of rickets and the growth in bone that indicate the illness.

During Park's time, rickets had been viewed as an enduring and often permanently damaging disease that was especially prominent in the case of infants. Before Park's initial arrival at Johns Hopkins, Howland and Dr. E.V. McCollum had already begun work on studying rickets – specifically studying the changes in calcium and potassium content of the blood. Park taught and worked in the Hunterian Lab where he studied histologic changes in the bone, characterizing normal versus abnormal changes in bone growth.^[4] He did so by varying dietary deficiencies and through his work discovered that vitamin D can be used to prevent rickets. This work, along with that done by E.V. McCollum, Dr. Simmonds and Dr. Shipley, led to a total of 23 publications over a fifteen-month period.^[6]

Park's other research interests were reflected in his study of bone structure where growth has been malignantly halted by illness. Through X-ray examinations, he discovered that bone growth proceeds horizontally so that a dense horizontal line of bone builds up during a disease phase, despite the cartilage arrest. Park received the Goldberger Award for this study at the age of 85, and he also included his findings through years of bone growth research in the publication of his last paper in 1964.

Personal life and family

While working at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, Park lived in Garrison, Maryland, with his wife, Agnes Bevan, an English woman he had met in London in 1911. Together, they have three children, two sons, and a daughter. Referred to as "Ned" by his friends and colleagues, Park was known for having people over to his home and summer home in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. There, Park continued his research and fished for salmon, designing the 'Park fly' to better catch them. It was at his summer home on the Margaree River that Park passed away in 1969 and was later buried.^[4]

Awards and honorary degrees

• M.A. from Yale University (1923)
• Doctorate of Science from the University of Rochester (1936)
• Doctorate of Science from Washington University in St. Louis (1950)
• Association of American Physicians - George M. Kober Medal (1950) an award given annually to a member who makes significant contributions to their respective field^[8]
• Doctorate of Law from Johns Hopkins University (1951)
• American Pediatric Society - inaugural John Howland Award (1952) an award given annually for "distinguished service to pediatrics as a whole."^[9]
• New York Academy of Medicine - Bronze Medal (1953)
• Doctorate of Science from Laval University (1955)
• American Medical Association - Goldberg Nutrition Award (1964)

References

External links

• EDWARDS A. PARK | Commentaries | Pediatrics
• The Edwards A. Park Collection
• Pioneers | Johns Hopkins Children Center - Johns Hopkins Medicine