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.
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.
Dr. Beard uses today’s mass communications technologies—television, the Internet, and print media—to reach her patients in their homes. Though Dr. Beard still values the one-on-one relationship with patients in her pediatrics practice, she also sees herself as a health educator, with the ability to reach millions of people at once.
Her contribution to the affairs of Whangārei during her several interwoven careers was that of a capable and sensible person.
Dr. Judith S. Kaur has devoted her career to the improvement of survival rates for American Indians with cancer. Although she had planned to return to the reservation after medical school to practice medicine, she has instead devoted her career to scientific research. Fascinated with the study of cancer, she now makes her contribution to the health of American Indian populations at the forefront of medical science.
Judith Flores, M.D., developed an award-winning bilingual, bicultural asthma management program that reached out to New York City’s Hispanic community in Brooklyn. The program has improved the quality of life for people with asthma and reduced the severity of asthma attacks.
JudyAnn Bigby, M.D., served as director of the Harvard Medical School Center of Excellence in Women’s Health and is nationally recognized for her pioneering work educating physicians on the provision of care to people with histories of substance abuse.