Their next area of research was the development of a technique for catheterization of the heart. Using this technique they were able to study and characterise traumatic shock, the physiology of heart failure. They measured the effects of cardiac drugs and described various forms of dysfunction in chronic cardiac diseases and pulmonary diseases and their treatment, and developed techniques for the diagnosis of congenital heart diseases. For this work, Richards, Cournand, and Werner Forssmann were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for 1956.[citation needed]
In 1945 Richards moved his lab to Bellevue Hospital, New York. In 1947 he was made the Lambert Professor of Medicine at Columbia University, where he had taught since 1925. During his career he also served as an advisor to Merck Sharp and Dohme Company, and edited the Merck Manual. Richards retired from his positions at Bellevue and Columbia in 1961.
Fishman, Alfred P. Richards, Dickinson Woodruff. American National Biography Online February 2000.
Dickinson W. Richards on Nobelprize.org , accessed 12 October 2020 including the Nobel Lecture The Contributions of Right Heart Catheterization to Physiology and Medicine, with Some Observations on the Physiopathology of Pulmonary Heart Disease
Raju, T N (May 1999). "The Nobel chronicles. 1956: Werner Forssmann (1904–79); André Frédéric Cournand (1895–1988); and Dickinson Woodruff Richards, Jr (1895–1973)". Lancet. 353 (9167): 1891. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(05)75106-0. PMID10359453. S2CID54402027.
Sulek, K (January 1969). "[Nobel prize for Andre F. Cournand, Werner T. O. Forssmann and Dickinson W. Richards in 1956 for the discovery related to heart catheterization and studies on pathological changes in the cardiovascular system]". Wiad. Lek.22 (2): 203–4. PMID4890192.