In honor of Women’s History Month, Rock Health rounds up ten inspiring ladies who disrupted the history of healthcare.
By Ana Manzur-Allan (Executive Director, XX in Health)
In honor of Women’s History Month, XX in Health is featuring ten inspiring ladies in the history of healthcare and medicine. From a Nobel-prize winning chemist who discovered the structure of penicillin to the founder of Planned Parenthood, these healthcare rockstars helped set the stage for disruption then, and now.
Grace Hopper
was not only a Navy rear admiral but also one of the first computer programmers. She drove the transition from crude programming techniques to the use of novel compilers.
Gertrude Elion
a top-notch chemist, she was responsible for the discovery of over 45 treatments to aid the immune system in fighting cancer, organ transplant, and other diseases. She advanced the development of the drug Perinethol, which became the first effective treatment for leukemia.
Dorothy Hodgkin
was a Nobel Prize-winning chemist whose research led to the discoveries of penicillin, and later insulin.
Wafaa El-Sadr
is an AIDS researcher who has devoted her life to providing services and treatments to underserved populations. She is now director of the International Center for AIDS Care and Treatment Programs, where she has given access to services to almost one million HIV patients.
Mary-Claire King
revolutionized speculation about the cause of breast cancer by pointing out underlying genetic causes. Her research on chromosome 17 led to the discovery of BRCA-1′s role in breast cancer.
Florence Nightingale
is considered the founder of modern nursing. She established her own nursing school where she outlined the guidelines for nursing, from sanitation to management, which are still upheld today.
Marie Curie
was a polish physicist and chemist. She was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize and first person to win two Nobel Prizes! People know her best for her theory and research on radioactivity.
Virginia Apgar
the first female professor at Columbia (pictured above), developed a game-changing test to assess a newborn’s health, which was later named “the Apgar score” in her honor.
Margaret Sanger
devoted her life to caring, and fighting, for the reproductive rights of women. She helped launch the first FDA-approved oral contraceptive and founded the organization that we now know as Planned Parenthood.
This post originally appeared on the Rock Health blog.
About the blogger: Ana Manzur-Allan is Executive Director at XX in Health, an initiative of Rock Health that connects and empowers visionaries to drive change in healthcare. As a leading network of entrepreneurs and executives, we host curated events, foster online engagement, and support thought leadership. Become a member by joining our LinkedIn group.
