LAUSR

Her name meant “faith of the world,” and her pursuit of excellence in service to children offers a message of enduring inspiration to all pediatric health professionals. She received the Elizabeth Blackwell Award, named after the first woman to graduate from a United States medical school; was declared National Scientist of the Philippines, the first woman to be so honored; and received the Blessed Teresa of Calcutta Award as “a pediatrician, scientist, educator, author, public health advocate, humanitarian, and founder of several children’s health and welfare institutions including the Children’s Memorial Hospital” [1]. Fe Del Mundo was born in Manila in the Philippines in 1911, one of eight children of a prosperous lawyer who served in the national legislature [2]. Several of the family’s children died in infancy and childhood, and one of them, her sister, had written in a notebook that she wanted to become a physician. “When she died,” Del Mundo recalled, “I decided to take her place” [1]. In 1926, she enrolled at the University of the Philippines College of Medicine, graduating first in her class in 1933. Having seen firsthand the poor care available to children, she resolved to become a pediatrician. The president of the Philippines, impressed by her excellence and dedication, offered to fund her further training at any school in the United States she might choose. She chose Harvard Medical School, arriving in Boston in 1936. It is said that she was admitted by mistake — officials at Harvard, which did not then admit women, had not realized her gender.