Hi! For our final ELM Spotlight we're keeping it in the medical field and highlighting another pioneer that saved probably millions of lives due to her innovations. I felt that her spotlight needed to be done this year and I'm trying to get out of rolling over entrants to the following year then not doing them, so when I read more about today's entrant I knew exactly where I wanted to put her in the lineup and I made myself stick to it. Like last week's entrant, Mrs. Gaston did something that probably saved hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of lives due to early detection. I left some things off of her notables today so that you'd check out the further reading links. Today's entrant is, quite frankly, a badass broad. She's amazing. Let's learn more about her!
Name: Marilyn Hughes Gaston, 1939--
Profession: Pediatrician, Public Health Services Bureau director
Why is the Spotlight on her today? For her dedication to public health and her groundbreaking changes to medical screenings at birth
Notables:
--Was the first Black woman to head the Bureau of Primary Care in the Public Health Services Bureau
--Was the first Black woman to head a bureau in the US Department of Health
--Was the second Black female to be appointed Assistant Surgeon General and Rear Admiral
--Graduated from the University of Cincinnati School of Medicine as the only Black student and one of six females
--Is the reason for the implementation of sickle cell anemia as part of the routine health screening that newborns undergo
--Is a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha
--Opened the first community health center in Ohio, the Lincoln Heights Health Center, which is a primarily Black, underserved suburb in Cincinnati
--Co-founded the Gaston and Porter Health Improvement Center, which provides outreach programming to promote healthcare initiatives
--Created a movement to get local communities and businesses to create goals and initiatives to allow equal opportunities for quality healthcare
--Was allotted grant money by then-President Nixon to open the Sickle Cell Disease Center and later became the deputy director
--Worked as a medical expert at the Sickle Cell division of the National Heart, Blood and Lung Institute
--Helped revolutionize the treatment of infants born with sickle cell through her research to help find common symptoms and behaviors with various patients, the effectiveness of penicillin when given to infants with the disease, and the discovery of what most often contributes to death in those with the disease
--Is the namesake of a scholarship given out by her alma mater University of Cincinnati to help fund the education of two underserved minority students annually
--Co-authored a book that discusses and promotes exercise, nutrition and helping to prevent age-related diseases in African-American women, particularly those reaching or at middle age
--Received the National Medical Association's Lifetime Achievement Award for her work
Further reading links:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4
Quote of the Day:
“We live in direct relation to our heroes and ‘sheroes.’”
--Dr. Marilyn Hughes Gaston, quoting Maya Angelou as one of her inspirations
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