M. Irené Ferrer Professorship in Gender-Specific Medicine

The Partnership for Gender-Specific Medicine is raising money to fund the M. Irené Ferrer Professorship in Gender-Specific Medicine at Columbia University. Proceeds from our Annual Gala benefit the professorship.

Dr. M. Irené Ferrer is a legend to generations of physicians, scientists and patients. Her work integrated outstanding research, expert patient care, brilliant educational achievements in training whole generations of cardiologists, and spectacularly important contributions to industry.

Dr. Ferrer began her career at a time when there were major and nearly insurmountable obstacles to achievement for women in all the professions, including medicine. She was the first woman to serve in 1943-44 as Chief Resident in Medicine at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons on the first (Columbia) Medical Division at Bellevue Hospital. Her groundbreaking research as part of the Nobel Prize winning team who developed the cardiac catheter made the accurate description and interpretation of the activity of the heart and blood vessels possible, defined for the first time the pathophysiology of many types of cardiovascular illnesses, and laid the foundation for all interventional cardiology and medicine's subsequent achievements in open heart surgery.

Dr. Ferrer had a unique gift for teaching. Her humor, enormous store of information, and gentle empathy for patients made her Friday morning rounds a standing-room-only event. She trained generations of cardiologists, many of whom went on to careers in academic medical leadership and scientific achievements all over the world. She performed a unique service to the insurance community in defining over a period of two decades the risks of insuring the patient with cardiovascular disease. It was her collaboration with IBM that made the computerized interpretation of electrocardiograms possible.

Dr. Ferrer's contributions to medicine have been recognized by countless awards, among them the College of Physicians and Surgeon's Distinguished Service Award in 1989 and the P&S Alumni Association's Gold Medal for distinguished academic accomplishment in medicine in 1993. In 1998, she received the John Elder Award from the American Academy of Insurance Medicine for her contributions to that field. This year, the National Library of Medicine selected her as one of the most important women in American medicine for a special exhibition that will travel the nation.

The Professorship will create an enduring tribute to Dr. Ferrer's unique and enormously important gifts to medicine. It will also serve to remind future generations of scholars of what a remarkable woman can contribute to society. Dr. Ferrer will always be an essentially important role model for the increasing number of women joining the ranks of students in our medical schools.

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