Dr. del Mundo was born on Nov. 27th, 1911 and died on August 6th, 2011. To just call her a Filipino pediatrician would be accurate but it wouldn't do justice to her contributions and accomplishments.
Her pioneering work in pediatrics in the Philippines in an active medical practice that spanned 8 decades won her international recognition, including the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service in 1977.
“I’m glad that I have been very much involved in the care of children, and that I have been relevant to them,” said del Mundo. “They are the most outstanding feature in my life.”
Google's accompanying blog about del Mundo:
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| DR. FE DEL MUNDO |
A gifted student who became the first woman admitted to Harvard Medical School, del Mundo returned home after completing her studies in the U.S. During World War II, she set up a hospice where she treated more than 400 children and later became director of a government hospital. Frustrated with the bureaucracy, she eventually sold her house and belongings to finance the first pediatric hospital in the Philippines. Del Mundo lived on the second floor of the Children's Medical Center in Quezon City, making early morning rounds until she was 99 years old, even in a wheelchair.
When she wasn’t treating patients she was teaching students, publishing important research in medical journals, and authoring a definitive ‘Textbook of Pediatrics.’ She established the Institute of Maternal and Child Health to train doctors and nurses, and became the first woman to be conferred the title National Scientist of the Philippines and received many awards for her outstanding service to humankind.Before WWII, she returned to the Philippines to provide her services. She later opened her own hospital and research facility.
n 1980, she was conferred the rank and title of National Scientist of the Philippines while in 2010, she was conferred the Order of Lakandula. Del Mundo was still active in her practice of pediatrics into her 90s. She died on August 6, 2011 after suffering cardiac arrest.
In a tribute to the late doctors, Philip S. Chua, a Filipino American physician who was former student of de Mundo’s, said: “She was the first Filipino Diplomate of the American Board of Pediatrics, the first lady president of the Philippine Pediatric Society, the founder and first president of the Philippine Woman’s Medical Association, the first woman to be elected president of the Philippine Medical Association in it’s 65-year history, and the first Asian to be voted president of the Medical Woman’s International Association.”
Her Doodle pushed Harvard in a quandry. While her bio states that she was the first woman to enroll in Harvard's medial school, Harvard's historians couldn't find any records confirming that part of her story.
After graduating from medical school at the University of the Philippines in 1933, Philippine President Ramon Quezon offered her a full scholarship to further her medical studies at any institution in the world. She chose Harvard.
Her biography, as stated when she received the Ramon Magsaysay Award (Asia’s equivalent to the Nobel Prize) in 1977 for her work in pediatrics, includes the anecdote of del Mundo’s surprise upon arriving in Cambridge and being sent to a men’s dormitory. There was no other option, the bio read, since there were no lodgings designated for women at the time. Upon discovering the mix-up — it appears that the admissions board had assumed she was a man — Harvard officials looked into her application. Finding an impressively strong record, the pediatrics department head accepted her anyway.
Except ... Harvard couldn't find any documentation that del Mundo had ever enrolled as an undergrad. Most likely, explained Harvard officials, she was accepted into Harvard Medical School as a graduate student.
The fragmented record of del Mundo’s years at Harvard offers clues about the school’s attitudes towards women and minorities at the time. HMS, tweets Joan Ilacqua, archivist for diversity and inclusion at Harvard’s Center for the History of Medicine, did not “celebrate or acknowledge the academic work of women prior to officially accepting women students in 1945.” Being a woman from a far-off nation — perhaps admitted accidentally for graduate studies — it’s unlikely that del Mundo’s achievements were recorded in a way that they deserved.
Harvard's history of its first female graduates, for example, didn’t include del Mundo before Tuesday, but at around 4:25 p.m. Eastern, an entry was added: “1936: Dr. Fe del Mundo comes to Boston to further her studies in Pediatrics, likely at Boston Children’s Hospital.”
“I think Dr. Fe del Mundo is an incredibly inspirational person,” Harvard's Ilacqua told Inverse, “and I think that her story is so important and certainly worthy of being seen by so [many] people.”
The fragmented record of del Mundo’s years at Harvard offers clues about the school’s attitudes towards women and minorities at the time. HMS, tweets Joan Ilacqua, archivist for diversity and inclusion at Harvard’s Center for the History of Medicine, did not “celebrate or acknowledge the academic work of women prior to officially accepting women students in 1945.” Being a woman from a far-off nation — perhaps admitted accidentally for graduate studies — it’s unlikely that del Mundo’s achievements were recorded in a way that they deserved.
Harvard's history of its first female graduates, for example, didn’t include del Mundo before Tuesday, but at around 4:25 p.m. Eastern, an entry was added: “1936: Dr. Fe del Mundo comes to Boston to further her studies in Pediatrics, likely at Boston Children’s Hospital.”
“I think Dr. Fe del Mundo is an incredibly inspirational person,” Harvard's Ilacqua told Inverse, “and I think that her story is so important and certainly worthy of being seen by so [many] people.”
“Dr. Fe Del Mundo was a pioneer for Filipino Americans, women of color, and everyone in general. She teaches us to recognize that despite the systems that try to push us down, we can dream big and accomplish our goals,” Kevin Nadal, a psychology professor at the City University of New York and trustee of the Filipino American National History Society, told NBC News.
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