Bernadine Healy

Bernadine Patricia Healy (August 4, 1944 – August 6, 2011) was an American cardiologist and the first female director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). During her career, Healy held leadership positions at the Johns Hopkins University, the Cleveland Clinic, Ohio State University, and Harvard University. She was also president of both the American Red Cross and the American Heart Association. She was health editor and columnist for U.S. News & World Report and a well-known commentator in the news media on health issues. Healey was born on August 4, 1944, in New York City to Violet McGrath an Michael Healy, the second of their four daughters. She was raised in Long Island City, Queens. Her parents stressed the importance of education and she excelled at her studies. In 1962, she graduated top of her class at the Hunter College High School in Manhattan. With a full scholarship, she attended Vassar College, graduating summa cum laude in 1965 with a major in chemistry and a minor in philosophy. She was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. She then went on to Harvard Medical School, also on full scholarship, and was one of only ten women out of 120 students in her class. After graduating cum laude from Harvard Medical School in 1970, she completed her internship and residency in internal medicine and cardiology fellowship at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and Johns Hopkins Hospital. After finishing her post-doctoral training, she became the first woman to join its full-time faculty in cardiology and rose quickly to the rank of professor of medicine. For eight years she headed the coronary care unit at the Johns Hopkins Hospital. At the medical school, she served as assistant dean for post-doctoral programs and faculty development. During that time she organized a nationally covered Mary Elizabeth Garrett symposium on women in medicine which examined the opportunities and hurdles faced by women physicians roughly 90 years after the founding of the medical school in 1893, and at the same time honored Garrett, the Victorian socialite and philanthropist who made sure that Johns Hopkins School of Medicine opened its admissions to women (the medical school opened its doors in October 1893; and three of the eighteen original candidates for the M.