|
In honor of Women in Medicine month, Children’s News highlights the achievements of four women at Children’s Hospital Boston whose leadership, dedication and passion are sure to inspire generations of women to come.
Sitting in her office in General Pediatrics amidst piles of books, papers and certificates, Palfrey exudes a calm and humble presence. Yet behind this modest demeanor is a woman who has moved mountains in the field of pediatric health care and shows no signs of slowing down.
During her medical school years at Columbia University in the 1960s, Palfrey became disgusted by the health disparities she saw between the rich and the poor. When she came to Children’s shortly thereafter, she joined the effort to bring health care to underserved communities. "Little by little over a 30 year period, I worked with the Boston public schools, daycare centers and disability groups to bring primary care and community medicine up to the level of the other departments," she says. For 22 of those 30 years, Palfrey directed Children’s General Pediatrics Division, while writing five books and hundreds of papers on issues affecting children’s health and poverty.
Palfrey has extended her outreach work to underserved communities worldwide. In 2008, she helped launch Children’s International Pediatric Center, which provides training and service initiatives, including programs in maternal and child health, AIDS treatment and prevention and nutrition. She’s also been elected president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the nation’s largest pediatric organization. She hopes to use this position to continue advocating for universal health care for children. "There are hopefully going to be a lot of changes with this new administration," she says. "And I look forward to being part of those changes."
When Marsha Moses talks about cancer, her eyes light up. "It’s a formidable problem that begs a formidable solution," she says. Each day, she works on developing those solutions, bringing doctors closer to the point when they can detect and treat the disease before it ever has a chance to develop into cancer.
After receiving her PhD in Biochemistry from Boston University and completing a doctoral fellowship at Children’s and MIT in 1990, she worked with the late Judah Folkman, MD, who was the first to hypothesize that cancer growth depends on angiogenesis, or the growth of new blood vessels. "At the time, the work was somewhat radical," Moses says. "But I stayed here because I believed in Dr. Folkman and in his work." Moses and her team began to identify the mechanisms underlying tumor growth and developed ways to cut off their blood supply to prevent tumors from growing.
Moses has complemented this work with studies looking for urinary biomarkers for cancer—early indicators that cancer may be lurking. During the past decade, she and her fellow researchers have identified biomarkers for many cancers, including breast, prostate, ovarian and brain cancers. "My hope is that one day, at our annual check-ups, a noninvasive urine test will be used to detect the presence of cancer earlier than is currently possible," she says.
Because of these achievements, Moses was elected to the prestigious Institute of Medicine of the National Academies of the United States in 2008. She’s equally proud of her honors recognizing her commitment to mentoring young scientists and clinicians; this past May, Moses was awarded the Harvard Medical School Joseph B. Martin Dean’s Award for the Advancement of Women Faculty.
Judging by the photos cast throughout Daniel’s office, one might think she has an enormous family, and in a way she does. Daniel has devoted most of her career to mentoring primarily women graduate students and early career psychologists—who she refers to as her academic daughters—and she watches their professional and personal lives soar under her guidance.
After Daniel earned her PhD from the University of Illinois-Urbana, she came to Children’s, where she was inspired to give women something she never had when she attended graduate school. "The 1960s was a challenging time for a black woman to attend graduate school," she says. "Some faculty members were uncomfortable with the then-negro students attending predominantly white universities." While the situation has improved since then, more work is needed to increase the number of black faculty in psychology departments, she says. So Daniel founded and directed a mentoring program aimed at increasing the number of black women research psychologists. In addition to the women in the formal program, she’s mentored scores of others in Psychology and Medicine.
Daniel has offered diversity training and education programs for both trainees and faculty. She’s also co-edited two books—one on women’s mental health and the other on media images and women. "Mentoring has enriched my life," she says. "I’m especially pleased because so many of my mentees have become mentors themselves. I derive a great deal of pleasure from watching their lives evolve, and it’s an honor to have been a part of the lives of so many smart, hard-working, delightful people."
When Buchmiller became Children’s first female surgical chief resident in 1995, some colleagues didn’t initially know how to react. "They didn’t know if I was going to cry or breakdown under the stress, or be excessively temperamental and overbearing," she remembers. "But people quickly realized that I was proud to be the newest member of an amazing team and I let my personality come through."
Through her career, Buchmiller has participated in several rare and challenging surgeries. As a fellow, she helped separate conjoined twins who have since grown into healthy adolescent boys. More recently, she helped reconstruct the digestive tracts of infants born with debilitating defects. "There’s nothing better than getting a picture from a family with the child finishing off cake from her first birthday celebration," she says. "It just warms your heart!"
Buchmiller works closely with the Advanced Fetal Care Center, counseling families who discover that their unborn children have congenital, sometimes even life-threatening, conditions. Then, she treats their babies when they’re born.
Buchmiller’s drive extends to her personal life, too. She puts her highly trained hands to use outside the operating room when she plays classical violin in the Longwood Symphony Orchestra. And when she’s not on her feet in surgery, she’s often training for the Boston Marathon, which she has run three times so far, and she plans to run the New York Marathon this fall. "It’s been important to me to have balance in my life," she says. "But I really do love newborn surgery. Their tissue is so delicate and elegant; the results are very rewarding."
|
