The Justice

A LIFELONG MISSION: Dr. Susan Blumenthal has dedicated her medical career to promoting women's health.

This story has been edited and re-posted due to some factual errors and misquotings. The Justice regrets the errors.

In the past 20 years, Dr. Susan J. Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.A. has been U.S.
Assistant Surgeon General, a rear admiral, the first ever Deputy Assistant
Secretary for Women's Health and a senior medical and eHealth advisor in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She was a distinguished visiting professor of Women's Studies at Brandeis, following in the footsteps of fellow distinguished visiting professor Anita Hill (WGS). But her greatest achievement has been devoting her life to promoting women's health.

Blumenthal's dedication to women's health research was inspired by a tragedy that occurred when she was a young girl.

"When I was 10 years old, my mother developed thyroid cancer. I will never forget visiting her at the hospital and feeling the helplessness of that disease," she said.

Blumenthal started her public health initiative in her teens. Growing up next to Stanford University gave her the opportunity to work at Stanford's hospital. Blumenthal spent her teenage years applying herself to communications and public health in Stanford's News Bureau Office. She went on to complete her bachelor's degree at Reed College and returned to Stanford to complete her medical training, internship and residency.

While Blumenthal pursued her interest in medical research in college, her mother was plagued once more by cancer.

"The first year of college, my mother developed breast cancer. In my last year of medical school the disease spread into her spine," Blumenthal recounted.

Despite the devastating effects of her mother's disease, Blumenthal used the circumstances as motivation to continue her fight for women's health.

"My mother lived long enough to watch me get a medical degree," Blumenthal said. "I chose my college curriculum with medicine in mind," she added with determination.

While in medical school at Stanford, Blumenthal realized the medical field went beyond private practice and helping single individuals.

"Medicine allows you to work with one person at a time," Blumenthal said.

Instead of complying with the limitations of private practice, her goal was to benefit as many patients as possible, which is why she entered the field of medical research, she said.

Continued...

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