# Marianne Legato

Marianne J. Legato (born 1935) is an American physician, author, and lecturer in the field of gender-specific medicine. Her work focuses on understanding how biological sex and gender influence human health and the experience of diseases.
Legato is the founder and director of the Partnership for Gender-Specific Medicine at Columbia University. The partnership specializes in sex-specific aspects of men's and women's health. In 2006, she established the non-profit Gender-Specific Medicine Foundation. Her research has primarily centered on women and heart diseases. She received an award from the American Heart Association for her 1992 book, The Female Heart: The Truth About Women and Coronary Artery Disease. This book was the first written about women and heart disease intended for the general public.
Legato is the founder and editor of The Journal of Gender-Specific Medicine, Gender Medicine, and Gender and the Genome. She advocates for the inclusion of women in clinical trials and is frequently cited in New York's annual "Top Doctors" issue. She has authored several books, including Why Men Die First: How to Lengthen Your Lifespan; Eve's Rib: The New Science of Gender-Specific Medicine and How It Can Save Your Life; The Female Heart: The Truth About Women and Coronary Artery Disease; and Why Men Never Remember and Women Never Forget, which have been translated into multiple languages. Additionally, she edited the medical textbook Principles of Gender-Specific Medicine, which addresses sex-specific aspects of normal human function and disease. The third edition of the textbook received a PROSE Award from the Association of American Publishers in 2018.
Legato has spoken at lectures and conferences worldwide. She has also appeared on television and radio programs, including ABC's 20/20, NBC's Good Morning America, The Today Show, and The Oprah Winfrey Show, where she discussed gender bias in women's healthcare and related topics. She served as the president of the First International Congress on Gender-Specific Medicine in Berlin in 2006 and is the honorary president of subsequent International Congresses on Gender-Specific Medicine held in Vienna (2007) and Stockholm (2008).

## Early life and education

Marianne J. Legato was born in 1935 in New York. As a child, she accompanied her father, a general practitioner, on his visits to patients' homes and hospitals. She graduated from New York University College of Medicine, her father's alma mater, in 1962. Legato credits much of her success during and after medical school to the mentorship she received from José María Ferrer Jr. and M. Irené Ferrer, whom she met at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. M. Irené Ferrer facilitated Legato's education at New York University College of Medicine and covered her tuition expenses. Legato has two children.

## Professional career

After completing her medical degree in 1962, Legato pursued an internship and junior residency at Bellevue Hospital, followed by a senior residency at the Presbyterian Hospital of the City of New York. From 1965 to 1968 she served as a visiting fellow in cardiology at the Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. In 1968, Legato became an instructor in medicine, beginning her academic career at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons. She is now Professor Emeritus of Clinical Medicine at the institution. Legato is a Fellow of the American College of Physicians and a Diplomate of the American Board of Internal Medicine.
Since 1969, Legato has been an attending physician at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center, and since 1973, she has also been an attending physician at the Presbyterian Hospital in the City of New York. Currently, she is a senior attending physician at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital and has been a senior attending physician at the Presbyterian Hospital since 1998. Legato has held various teaching appointments and committee memberships at both institutions. In 1997, she founded the Partnership for Gender-Specific Medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons.
The Partnership for Gender-Specific Medicine established the M. Irené Ferrer Professorship in Gender-Specific Medicine at Columbia University. Legato is the director of the Partnership.

## Research and advocacy

Legato received the Martha Lyon Slater Fellowship from 1965 to 1968 and the J. Murray Steele Award in 1971, both from the New York Heart Association. Her research on the structure and function of the myocardial cell was supported by a Research Career Development Award from the National Institutes of Health and research grants from the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. She has served on study sections to evaluate NIH grant applications at the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute. From 1995 to 1998, she served as a charter member of the advisory board to the newly established Office of Research in Women's Health at the NIH. During that time, she co-chaired the task force responsible for setting the research agenda on women's health for the 21st century.
In 1992, Legato received the American Heart Association's Blakeslee Award for her book The Female Heart: The Truth About Women and Heart Disease, published by Simon & Schuster. Her film, Shattering the Myths: Women and Heart Disease, earned her the first prize, known as a "Freddy", in the Women's Health category at the 1995 International Health and Medical Film Festival.
She was recognized as an "American Health Hero" by American Health for Women in 1997 and was honored with the Women's Medical Society of New York's annual Woman in Science Award in the same year. Ladies Home Journal named her a "Heroine of Women's Health" in the fall of 2000. Legato has been recognized as one of New York's top doctors by New York, most recently in 2009.
In 2002, Legato received the Woman in Science Award from the American Medical Women's Association. She was featured in the June 1994 issue of Mirabella magazine's "1,000 Women for the 1990s" and was included in the New York Times list of accomplished healthcare professionals in the field of women's health in June 1997.
In 2004, Legato was one of the 300 American physicians featured in the National Library of Medicine's documentary Changing the Face of Medicine. She received the National Council on Women's Health Award for distinguished service in gender-specific medicine in 2005. The Ladies Home Journal established the annual Marianne J. Legato Award in Gender-Specific Medicine in her honor in 2006.
In recognition of her work, Legato was granted an honorary PhD from the University of Panama in 2015.
In 2018, she was honored with a PROSE Award from the Association of American Publishers for her book on clinical medicine Principles of Gender-Specific Medicine: Gender in the Genomic Era (Third Edition). Her book, The Plasticity of Sex: The Molecular Biology and Clinical Features of Genomic Sex, Gender Identity, and Sexual Behavior, won a PROSE Award in the Biomedicine category in 2021.

## Publications

* The Female Heart: The Truth About Women and Heart Disease (with Carol Colman) (1992)
* What Women Need to Know (1997)
* Eve's Rib: The Groundbreaking Guide to Women's Health (2002)
* Why Men Never Remember and Women Never Forget (2005)
* Why Men Die First: How to Lengthen Your Lifespan (2008)