UMass Connections

The Lamar Soutter Library is pleased to highlight nine of the exhibit's women physicians whose careers have been influenced in some way by their association with the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Included below are very small excerpts that include the UMass Connection of each of these remarkable women.

Also included are three Local Legend nominees with UMass Connection. As a companion gallery to the Changing the Face of Medicine: Celebrating America's Women Physicians exhibition at the National Library of Medicine, in Bethesda, Maryland, Local Legends highlights the contributions of women physicians in rural and urban towns and cities throughout America. Nominated by a Congressional representative, each extraordinary local legend has made a positive, enduring contribution to the health care of their community and our country.

Dr. Lucy M. Candib

After receiving her medical degree from Harvard Medical School in 1972, Dr. Candib completed her family practice residency at the University of Massachusetts Medical School in 1976. Dr. Candib has taught and practiced family medicine ever since at the very site of her residency - the urban neighborhood Family Health Center of Worcester. An exceptional researcher, educator, author and physician, Dr. Candib received the Outstanding Primary Care Research, Generalist Physician Initiative award in 1997 from the University of Massachusetts Medical School. Exhibit Biography

Dr. Christine Cassel

A renowned expert in geriatric medicine and medical ethics, Dr. Cassel graduated from the University of Massachusetts Medical School in 1976. In 1995 Dr. Cassel became the first woman chair of the American Board of Internal Medicine, and in 1996 the first woman president of the American College of Physicians. Currently she is the President and CEO of the American Board of Internal Medicine and the ABIM Foundation. Exhibit Biography

Dr. Vanessa Northington Gamble

Dr. Gamble received her doctor of medicine degree in 1983 from the University of Pennsylvania, and completed her residency in family medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. A physician and historian of medicine, Dr. Gamble chaired the Legacy Committee of the Tuskegee Syphillis Study in 1997. Dr. Gamble holds appointments at both the National Center for Bioethics in Research & Health Care at Tuskegee University and at the Department of Health Policy and Management at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Exhibit Biography

Dr. Maxine Hayes

Dr. Hayes received her doctor of medicine degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo. Then, while earning a master of Public Health degree at Harvard University, she worked as a consultant to Project COPE, a program sponsored by the University of Massachusetts at Worcester to offer pediatric health care information to mothers of infants born in prison. Currently, Dr. Hayes is an Associate Professor at the School of Public and Community Medicine at the University of Washington, and a faculty member of the Department of Maternal-Child Health in the School of Public Health. Exhibit Biography

Dr. Susan Veronica Karol

Dr. Karol attended medical school at the Medical College of Wisconsin, and completed her general surgical residency at the University of Massachusetts in Worcester. Dr. Karol was the first woman of the Tuscarora Indian Nation of Sanborn to become a surgeon, and in 1996 she became the first woman to be made Chief of Surgery at Beverly (Massachusetts) Hospital, the position she currently holds. Exhibit Biography

Dr. Susan Potts Sloan--"Local Legend"

Dr. Sloan graduated from medical school at the University of Minnesota in 1998 and completed a residency in internal medicine at Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield, Massachusetts in 2001. She was appointed assistant professor of medicine at the University of Massachusetts and then coordinator of resident ambulatory education at Berkshire Medical Center. In 2002, Dr. Sloan returned to Tennessee to take up the position of associate director of an internal medicine program at East Tennessee State University. Exhibit Biographyand Dr. Sloan's Tennessee "Local Legends" profile.

Dr. Paula L. Stillman

Dr. Paula Stillman is a graduate of New York University School of Medicine. While teaching pediatrics at the University of Arizona in the 1970s, she trained and used "patient instructors" or "standardized patients" as a reliable way to evaluate her students' clinical competence. When Dr. Stillman moved to the University of Massachusetts Medical School in Worcester in 1982, she was able to organize a standardized patient consortium among area medical schools to train volunteers. Her system, Objective Structured Clinical Evaluations (OSCE) has been replicated in medical schools across the country. Exhibit Biography

Dr. Lani Graham--"Local Legend"

A Board-certified Family Practice physician, licensed to practice in both Maine and Georgia, Dr. Graham earned her medical degree from the Medical College of Pennsylvania, in Philadelphia, and an MPH from the Tulane University School of Public Health & Tropical Medicine, in New Orleans. She completed a residency in Family Practice at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, Worcester. Dr. Graham's Maine "Local Legends" profile.

Dr. Nancy Dickey--"Local Legend"

Nancy Dickey received her M.D. and residency training at the University of Texas Medical School at Houston. In 1997 Dr. Dickey was elected the first female president of the American Medical Association - one of her first recommendations a proposed patient's bill of rights. She has received honorary degrees from the Medical College of Pennsylvania, Florida Atlantic University, and in 1998 was the Commencement keynote speaker and an honorary degree recipient at the University of Massachusetts in Worcester. Dr. Dickey is currently President and Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs, Texas A&M University System Health Science Center. Dr. Dickey's Texas "Local Legends" profile.

Lucy Candib, M.D., Family Health Center of Worcester