Early Neonatal Research at Wilford Hall US Air Force Medical Center

The beginning of the many contributions to the field of neonatology originating from Wilford Hall Air Force Medical Center began when Robert deLemos, MD (Col, retired US Air Force [USAF]), was assigned to Lackland Air Force Base (AFB) in the summer of 1969. When Dr deLemos came to Texas, he was the first and only fully trained Air Force neonatologist at a time when neonatal medicine was still just in its infancy. Although surfactant deficiency had been described as the cause of hyaline membrane disease by Dr Avery in her landmark article published in 1959, surfactant replacement therapy in premature infants did not begin until the 1980s after the work of Dr Fujiwara et al was reported in Lancet.^1,2 Morbidity and mortality remained high in premature infants, especially in those under 1500 g with respiratory distress syndrome (RDS). Reports published in the 1960s and 1970s described...