Person

Ferencz, Charlotte

1921-2016

Dr. Charlotte Ferencz was born in Budapest, Hungary on October 28, 1921. She obtained her education in her native country until an employment opportunity for her engineer father brought the family to Montreal, Canada in May 1939. She entered McGill University that fall and earned a Bachelor of Science degree with Distinction in 1944 and a Doctor of Medicine and Master of Surgery degree in 1945. After internships at the Montreal General Hospital, Saskatoon City Hospital, and Kingston General Hospital, she became a resident in pediatrics at the Children's Memorial Hospital in Montreal and obtained a research fellowship in the Cardiology Department in 1948-49. In 1950, Dr. Ferencz went to Baltimore, MD as a Fellow in Pediatrics under the direction of Dr. Helen B. Taussig and became her associate in the Cardiac Clinic 1954-59. After appointments in Pediatric Cardiology at the University of Cincinnati and State University of New York at Buffalo (1958-1973). She earned a degree at the John Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health in 1970 and in 1973 joined the University of Maryland, where she rose to become Professor of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine. In 1981 she became Senior Associate in the Department of Epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health. With funding from the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute she embarked on the most important project of her career in 1981 as Principal Investigator of the regional Baltimore-Washington Infant Study, a population-based study of congenital heart disease. Drawing on the resources of five Pediatric Cardiology Centers, 53 regional hospitals, and more than 800 physicians the study included 4390 cases and 3572 controls over the years 1981-1989. Her findings are published as volumes 4 and 5 of the series "Perspectives in Pediatric Cardiology. In 2005 she collaborated in the development of a new website of the Health Sciences Human Services Library, University of Maryland, entitled " Congenital heart disease—a Public Health perspective."