Marion downs biography
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She suggested the formation of a National Joint Committee on Infant Screening and chaired the committee in its first years. Currently, the Marion Downs Center (MDC)’s programs include community outreach activities, such as parent, consumer, and professional seminars; Marion’s Way Preschool; and the unique Connect and Grow Teen Program.
Marion was involved in every aspect of developing the MDC for more than 15 years following her retirement, serving on the planning committee of the new building, participating in fund-raising activities, and personally attending most events.
How fortunate that when she dashed over to the University of Denver during the summer of 1950 to enroll in graduate studies, the mother of three teenage children skipped the longer registration lines for pre-law, political science, and psychology to choose the shorter line at speech pathology and audiology.
The field of audiology was still in its beginnings as a new profession, and Marion turned out to be very influential in shaping its future directions during the next five decades.
She was among the first to recognize the need for babies with hearing loss to use hearing aids as early as possible. In order to ensure that paediatric hearing loss would remain a priority concern for all paediatric health care professionals, Dr Downs proposed in 1969 that a national committee be established, comprised of representatives from professional hearing healthcare organisations, to periodically review and evaluate, and recommend ‘best practices’ approaches to newborn hearing screening programs.
If it could be improved, she wanted to fix it.
The last time I interviewed her, some ten years ago, she reported she received her BA in 1948 in Political Science and English, and as the lines for graduate school were too long for the really cool majors, she chose Speech and Hearing. She has been recognised with honours of nearly every professional hearing-related society including the American Academy of Audiology, the American Speech-Language-Hearing Association, and the American Academy of Otolaryngology Head and Neck Society.
The Center promotes her lifelong dream to provide every service for ear and hearing problems under one roof—for those from birth to old age. (You Know How): A 93-YearOld’s Guide to Living to a Ripe Old Age, wherein she advises readers to “laugh, exercise, love and enjoy sex, rebel against your aches and pains, and live out your passions.”
Remembering a Legacy
During my last luncheon with Marion a few months ago, she told me that she was indeed “the luckiest woman in the world to have lived such a fulfilled life.” She viewed herself as a “tough old gal” who survived a commercial airliner crash and a close call with a Vietnamese terrorist who tossed an explosive into a jeep coming to pick her up in Saigon, and bounced back anew following the surgical removal of a meningioma when she was 84.
Marion was an exercise enthusiast, jogging daily well into her 60s, skiing in her 70s, and swimming in a mini-triathlon at 89.
Young children really need perfect hearing to develop perfect language. Downs had an active life well into her nineties. Scientific neurological reports later confirmed their theory.
In 1959, Downs became a faculty member at the University of Colorado School of Medicine, where she investigated behavioral responses of newborns to sound.
Her 1964 report introduced the possibilities of newborn screening. Among my favorite memories of Marion was the fun of cohosting an infamous otology–audiology ski meeting, held annually in Colorado for 30 years.
Perhaps her greatest victory, however, was her success as a woman with a master’s degree working in a competitive medical school environment run by male physician authorities and ultimately earning a full professorship in a surgical specialty department—an amazing accomplishment in her day.
Growing up in New Ulm, MN, Marion likely had no idea where her extraordinary life was headed.
That’s been a really great thing, to have that innate euphoria. Along the way, she earned a welldeserved national and international reputation for her many contributions to the identification and management of pediatric hearing problems.
Ahead of Her Time
Marion was one of the cleverest, most colorful, and most charismatic people you might ever know.
Extremely intelligent, she did not copy or expand on the efforts of others, but rather was one of those rare people whose original thinking led to new clinical conclusions and applications.
For information on free on-demand access to the annual Marion Downs Lectures, visitwww.eaudiology.org or www.audiologyfoundation.org.