Dr. Linda M. Dairki Shortliffe built a successful career in the relatively new field of pediatric urology when very few women surgeons were doing such work. Since 1988, she has been at the Stanford University School of Medicine Medical Center and Packard Children’s Hospital as chief of pediatric urology. Since 1993, she has also been director of the Urology Residency Program at Stanford, and has been successful in recruiting more women physicians to her specialty.
Dr. Linda Aranaydo, a Muscogee Creek Indian, Kialegee Tribal Town, Bear Clan, has devoted her life to serving her family and her community and is a role model for other women who wish to enter medicine.
Through her lectures, workshops, syndicated radio programs and other communications media, Linda Austin, M.D., expands her clinical care to educate people across the country on substance abuse and mental health issues.
Dr. Lori Arviso Alvord became the first Navajo woman to be board certified in surgery in 1994.
Lucille Perez, M.D., was associate director of the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) at the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration of the United States Department of Health and Human Services. She was a leading authority on substance abuse and HIV prevention, and headed the internationally renowned Faculty Department Program at CSAP.
Dr. Joycelyn Elders was the first person in the state of Arkansas to become board certified in pediatric endocrinology and the first African American and only the second woman to head the U.S. Public Health Service.
Margaret Hamburg, one of the youngest people ever elected to the Institute of Medicine (IoM, an affiliate of the National Academy of Sciences), is a highly regarded expert in community health and bio-defense, including preparedness for nuclear, biological, and chemical threats. As health commissioner for New York City from 1991 to 1997, she developed innovative programs for controlling the spread of tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.
In 1997, Dr. Laura Williams became the first Native American woman physician to become a faculty member in the University of California system.
As a teenage mother, Laurie McLemore was told she would not be able to become a physician. Despite the lack of encouragement she received from academic advisors, and the challenges of raising a family whilst building a career, she went on to complete premedical training with honors and was offered a scholarship to attend medical school.
Dr. Lena Edwards was one of the first African American women to be board-certified as an obstetrician-gynecologist as well as to gain admission to the International College of Surgeons. Throughout her career she served the poor, lobbying for better health care for anyone who needed it, regardless of what they could afford.