Seven decades after receiving lifesaving care, patient honors doctor’s legacy through planned gift

During the spring of 1949 in Saginaw, Michigan, one family faced a difficult decision: schedule a newly-developed heart surgery to treat their daughter’s patent ductus arteriosus – a congenital heart defect that occurs when the blood vessel connecting the aorta to the pulmonary artery fails to close after birth – or lose their daughter before the age of 15.

“My parents wanted their daughter,” said Beverly Briggs, who at just four years old successfully underwent patent ductus arteriosus ligation – a procedure first perfected by Dr. Robert E. Gross of Boston Children’s Hospital only a decade prior.

Beverly’s surgery took place in Henry Ford Hospital on May 3, 1949. At the time, Henry Ford’s cardiology training program – established by Dr. Robert Ziegler, soon-to-be head of Pediatric Cardiology, and Dr. F. Mason Sones, Beverly’s intake physician at the time of her operation – was in its infancy.

While Beverly recuperated in the hospital, her mother and father stayed in the Henry Ford School of Nursing and Hygiene dormitory. Within a week she returned to her home in Saginaw. After completing kindergarten that fall, the Briggses moved to Merrill, Michigan where Beverly started first grade – enduring the 1.5 mile walk to and from her one-room schoolhouse every day with ease.
Beverly went on to earn her master’s degree in Quantitative Methods from Michigan State University and ran her own market research consulting practice until her retirement during the COVID-19 pandemic. While she doesn’t recall much of her time at Henry Ford Hospital after the surgery, one member of her surgical team became a household name: Dr. Conrad R. Lam, who in the years after scrubbing in for Beverly’s operation became a pioneer in the field of open-heart surgery.

“I would always ask, ‘who did the surgery?’ and my parents would say Dr. Lam was on the team. And the only person they’d ever mention was Dr. Lam,” Beverly recalled.

Seventy-four years later, Beverly chose to honor the lifesaving care she received at Henry Ford Hospital through a planned gift supporting the Conrad R. Lam Archives – a repository of historical Henry Ford publications, records, photographs, manuscripts and other artifacts.

With no heirs, Beverly decided to give back to organizations that made a large impact on her life.

“I thought of Dr. Lam, who was talked about by my parents,” she shared. “Henry Ford was on my list of beneficiaries, and I thought it was only fitting that the Archives be included in the beneficiary designation.”

By choosing Henry Ford Health as a beneficiary to her individual retirement account (IRA), Beverly will contribute to the digitization of archival materials for greater access across the system, preservation projects, educational publications, and film. The Lam Archives preserves the innovations and key figures in Henry Ford history in the 100+ years since the flagship hospital opened its doors.

“I’m amazingly grateful for Beverly’s generosity in thinking of the archives,” said Julia Pope, Senior Archivist, “I’m glad to be able to keep up Dr. Lam’s dream of having the hospital’s history preserved. This will help us further the Archive’s mission of making the hospital’s history accessible to people so that we don’t overlook the accomplishments of previous physicians and staff members here.”

A history buff herself, Beverly said, “Henry Ford has a unique history not only to the community of Detroit, and the discoveries in that history ought to be preserved.”