2019 Alumni Medalist Brenda Aiken '77BC, '81VPS
Channel: Columbia Alumni
Date: 2019-10-16

Brenda Aiken ’77BC, ’81VPS is director of Medical Services at Columbia Health, the Student Health Service of the Morningside campus. Upon graduation from medical school, she began her residency in Internal Medicine at Harlem Hospital Center. Since her adolescent years, Aiken has dedicated her life to serving the community. With the activism of the Civil Rights Movement surrounding her, she determined as a young teenager to have her life’s work make a difference in her community. Aiken spent two decades in community clinics and private practice in Harlem and the South Bronx.

The eldest of four daughters, her family migrated from Orangeburg, South Carolina, the place where she was born, to Fort Greene, Brooklyn, in search of improved social and economic opportunities, Aiken was the first in her family to graduate from high school and attend college. She is an active member of the National Medical Association and its New York affiliates and is currently president of the Susan Smith McKinney Steward Medical Society. As an alumna of the Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons, Aiken attends classes and weekend alumni events, holds alumni gatherings during the American College of Physicians national meetings, chairs the Campaign for Diversity, participates on the Admissions Committee and the Home Away From Home program, and speaks to first-generation and female medical students. She served as president of the VPS Alumni Association from 2014-2016.  She is the 2018 VPS Gold Medalist for Meritorious Service to the Alumni Association.

Aiken recently celebrated 30 years of marriage to the Hon. Kenneth L. Thompson, Jr., Justice of the New York State Supreme Court. She has two sons, Kenneth, graduating this year from Columbia Business School and Malcolm, graduating later this year with his master’s degree and about to embark on his Doctorate in African Studies.