Rigoberta Menchú Tum is a K'iche' Indigenous feminist and human rights activist from Guatemala. Menchú has dedicated her life to publicizing the rights of Guatemala's Indigenous peoples during and after the Guatemalan Civil War (1960–1996), and to promoting Indigenous rights internationally.
Medical social work is a sub-discipline of social work. Medical social workers typically work in a hospital, outpatient clinic, community health agency, skilled nursing facility, long-term care facility or hospice. They work with patients and their families in need of psychosocial help. Medical social workers assess the psychosocial functioning of patients and families and intervene as necessary. The role of a medical social worker is to "restore balance in an individual’s personal, family and social life, in order to help that person maintain or recover his/her health and strengthen his/her ability to adapt and reintegrate into society." Interventions may include connecting patients and families to necessary resources and support in the community such as preventive care; providing psychotherapy, supportive counseling, or grief counseling; or helping a patient to expand and strengthen their network of social supports. Professionals in this field typically work with other disciplines such as medicine, nursing, physical, occupational, speech and recreational therapy.
The Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, previously called Princess Margaret Hospital, is a scientific research centre and a teaching hospital in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, affiliated with the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine as part of the University Health Network. The hospital now stands as the largest cancer centre in Canada and one of the five largest cancer centres in the world. Along with the Odette Cancer Centre, which is also associated with University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine and is independently the sixth largest cancer centre in North America, it forms one of the largest cluster of cancer hospitals in the world.
Plenty International is an environmental, humanitarian aid and human rights organization based in Summertown, Tennessee, United States.
Viswanathan Shanta was an Indian oncologist and the chairperson of Adyar Cancer Institute, Chennai. She was best known for her efforts towards making quality and affordable cancer treatment accessible to all patients in her country. She dedicated herself to the mission of organizing care for cancer patients, study of the disease, research on its prevention and cure, spreading awareness about the disease, and developing specialists and scientists in various subspecialties of oncology. Her work won her several awards, including the Magsaysay Award, Padma Shri, Padma Bhushan, and Padma Vibhushan, the second highest civilian award given by the Government of India.
Ellen Johnson Sirleaf is a Liberian politician who served as the 24th President of Liberia from 2006 to 2018. Sirleaf was the first elected female head of state in Africa.
Barbara Pierce Bush is an American activist. She co-founded and is the chair of the board of the non-profit organization Global Health Corps. She and her fraternal twin sister, Jenna, are the daughters of the 43rd U.S. President George W. Bush and former First Lady Laura Bush. She is also a granddaughter of former President George H. W. Bush and Barbara Bush, after whom she is named.
Hackensack Meridian Health Hackensack University Medical Center (HUMC) is a 770-bed non-profit, research and teaching hospital located seven miles (11 km) west of New York City, in Hackensack, Bergen County, New Jersey, providing tertiary and healthcare needs for northern New Jersey and the New York metropolitan area. HUMC is New Jersey's largest provider of inpatient and outpatient services and is the fourth largest hospital in the nation based on admissions. HUMC is the flagship hospital of the Hackensack Meridian Health Health System and the largest hospital in the system. HUMC is affiliated with the New Jersey Medical School of Rutgers University and Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine.
Esther Pohl Lovejoy was an American physician and public health pioneer, suffrage activist, congressional candidate, and a central figure in early efforts to organize international medical relief work. In 1907, Lovejoy became the first woman appointed to direct a department of health in a major U.S city: the Board of Health in Portland, Oregon. Lovejoy worked on the women's suffrage campaigns in Oregon in 1906 and 1912, and founded the Everybody's Equal Suffrage League ahead of the 1912 election, when Oregon became the 7th state to grant women the right to vote. Lovejoy was among the founders of the Medical Women's International Association and was elected as its first president in 1919. Lovejoy ran for the U.S. Congress in 1920 as the Democratic candidate for Portland’s Third District but was not successful against the sitting Republican. She was awarded the Elizabeth Blackwell Medal by the American Medical Women's Association in 1951 and 1957 for contributions to the field of medicine. On July 21, 2012, the Century of Action Committee honored her and three other suffragists—Harriet Redmond, Harry Lane, and Martha Cardwell Dalton—by installing new headstones for them at the Lone Fir Pioneer Cemetery, where their initial headstones had become overgrown. The installation ceremony included costumed portrayals of the four suffragists and was attended by Barbara Roberts, a former Oregon governor. This event took place as part of the Century of Action Committee's year-long celebration of 100 years of suffrage for women in Oregon and as part of their efforts to call attention to remaining voting barriers for minorities.
Leonore Cohn Annenberg, also known as Lee Annenberg, was an American businesswoman, diplomat, and philanthropist. She was noted for serving as Chief of Protocol of the United States from 1981 to 1982. Annenberg was married to Walter Annenberg, who was an Ambassador to the United Kingdom and newspaper publishing magnate. She also served as the chairman and president of the Annenberg Foundation from 2002 until 2009.
William S. Breitbart, FAPM, is an American psychiatrist in Psychosomatic Medicine, Psycho-oncology, and Palliative Care. He is the Jimmie C Holland Chair in Psychiatric Oncology, and the Chief of the Psychiatry Service, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, He is a Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Weill Medical College of Cornell University. He was president of the Academy of Psychosomatic Medicine, and the Editor-in-Chief of Palliative and Supportive Care.
Stephen Michael Hahn is an American physician who served as the Commissioner of Food and Drugs from 2019 to 2021. Before becoming Commissioner, he was a radiation oncologist serving as Chief Medical Executive of the MD Anderson Cancer Center.
Ellen Gruenbaum is an American anthropologist. A specialist in researching medical practices that are based on a society’s culture.
Carolyn "Carrie" Hessler Radelet is the 19th and former Director of the Peace Corps. She was the Deputy Director and Chief Operating Officer of the Peace Corps from April 2010 to December 2015, serving as Acting Peace Corps Director from September 2012 until June 2014 when she was elevated to Director. She resigned on January 20, 2017.
Jeanne Quint Benoliel was an American nurse who studied the role of nursing in end-of-life settings. She founded the Ph.D. program at the University of Washington School of Nursing. She was designated a Living Legend of the American Academy of Nursing.
Cherri M. Pancake is an ethnographer and computer scientist who works as a professor of electrical engineering and computer science and Intel Faculty Fellow at Oregon State University, and as the director of the Northwest Alliance for Computational Science & Engineering. She is known for her pioneering work on usability engineering for high performance computing. In 2018 she was elected for a two-year term as president of the Association for Computing Machinery.
Agnes Ellen Harris was an American educator. She worked in education in Georgia, Florida, Texas, Washington, D.C. and Alabama, establishing Home Economics programs throughout the area. She was instrumental in founding "Tomato Clubs" in Florida, which were the precursor to the 4-H Youth Programs. She was one of the earliest practitioners of the field of Domestic Science and taught nutrition and health to women for fifty years. She was a charter member of the American Home Economics Association and served as a national officer in the 1920s. She was inducted into the Alabama Women's Hall of Fame in 1972.
Jimmie Coker Holland was a founder of the field of psycho-oncology. In 1977, she worked with two colleagues to establish a full-time psychiatric service at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. The program was one of the first of its kind in cancer treatment, and trained its psychologists to specialize in issues specific to people with cancer.
Catherine Panter-Brick is the Bruce A. and Davi-Ellen Chabner Professor of Anthropology, Health, and Global Affairs at Yale University, where she directs the Program on Conflict, Resilience, and Health and the Program on Stress and Family Resilience. She is also the Senior Editor of the interdisciplinary journal Social Science & Medicine and the President-Elect of the Human Biology Association. She serves as Head of Morse College, one of Yale’s 14 residential colleges.
Lea Baider, is a professor of medical psychology, and considered one of the founders of psycho-oncology. She is the director of psycho-oncology at the Sharsheret Institute of Oncology at the Hadassah Medical Center in Jerusalem. Baider is also a member of the Middle East Cancer Consortium. Baider runs workshops in psycho-oncology to expand the field.
