Joycelyn Elders, professor emeritus of pediatrics and distinguished professor of public health at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, recently received the Alma Dea Morani, M.D., Renaissance Woman Award from the Women in Medicine Legacy Foundation. The award is presented to a woman who has left a significant mark on history and pivotally advanced the future.
Dr. Elders has been a trailblazer in medicine for over six decades. She received her bachelor’s degree in biology from Philander Smith College (now University) in Little Rock, Arkansas, and both her medical degree and master’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Arkansas. She joined the university’s pediatrics faculty as an assistant professor in 1971. Five years later, she achieved the rank of full professor. Her scholarship centered on pediatric endocrinology, growth, juvenile diabetes, and sexual behavior.
In 1987, then-Governor Bill Clinton appointed Dr. Elders as head of the Arkansas Department of Health. In 1993, President Clinton appointed Elders as the fifteenth U.S. Surgeon General, making her the second woman and first African American to lead the U.S. Public Health Service. Dr. Elders left office in 1994 and joined the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in 1995 as a faculty researcher and professor of pediatric endocrinology at Arkansas Children’s Hospital.
Dr. Elders chronicled her historic career in her autobiography, Joycelyn Elders, M.D.: From Sharecropper’s Daughter to Surgeon General of the United States of America (William Morrow & Co., 1996).