page_title: History of women in Puerto Rico
section_title: Medicine
hierarchical_section_title: History of women in Puerto Rico / Women's empowerment / Medicine
caption_attribution_description: English: Helen Rodriguez Trias taking care of a newborn.
context_page_description: The recorded history of women in Puerto Rico can trace its roots back to the era of the Taíno, the indigenous people of the Caribbean, who inhabited the island that they called "Boriken" before the arrival of Spaniards. During the Spanish colonization the cultures and customs of the Taíno, Spanish, African and women from non-Hispanic European countries blended into what became the culture and customs of Puerto Rico.
  In the early part of the 19th Century the women in Puerto Rico were Spanish subjects and had few individual rights. Those who belonged to the upper class of the Spanish ruling society had better educational opportunities than those who did not. However, there were many women who were already active participants in the labor movement and in the agricultural economy of the island.
  After Puerto Rico was ceded to the United States in 1898 as a result of the Spanish–American War, women once again played an integral role in Puerto Rican society by contributing to the establishment of the University of Puerto Rico, women's suffrage, women's rights, civil rights, and to the military of the United States.
context_section_description: Dr. Antonia Coello Novello is a pediatrician who served as the 14th Surgeon General of the United States from 1990 to 1993.
  In 1978, Dr. Novello joined and received a commission in the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps (PHSCC) rising all the way up to flag officer/medical director grade. Her first assignment being as a project officer at the National Institute of Arthritis, Metabolism and Digestive Diseases of the National Institutes of Health (NIH). She held various positions at NIH, rising to the medical director/flag rank in the PHSCC and to the job of Deputy Director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) in 1986. She also served as Coordinator for AIDS Research for NICHD from September 1987. In this role, she developed a particular interest in pediatric AIDS. Dr. Novello made major contributions to the drafting and enactment of the Organ Transplantation Procurement Act of 1984 while assigned to the United States Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources, working with the staff of committee chairman Orrin Hatch. She was the first woman and the first Hispanic (Puerto Rican) to hold the position of Surgeon General.
  Dr. Milagros (Mili) J. Cordero is a licensed, registered occupational therapist with board certification in Pediatrics. She is the founder and President of ITT'S for Children, a professional group that assists and empowers parents to develop a better understanding of the strengths and needs of their children and to enhance their children's development to the full extent of their capability.
  Dr. Cordero is certified in the use of SAMONAS and Tomatis sound therapies. She is a member of the national DIR Institute faculty and serves as vice-chair to Georgia 's State Interagency Coordinating Council for the Babies Can't Wait Program, the professional advisory council of the National Cornelia De Lange Association, and the board of the Frazer Center in Atlanta, Georgia.
  Dr. Helen Rodríguez-Trías was a Pediatrician and activist. She was the first Latina president of The American Public Health Association, a founding member of the Women's Caucus of the American Public Health Association and the recipient of the Presidential Citizen's Medal. She testified before the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare for passage of federal sterilization guidelines. The guidelines, which she drafted, require a woman's written consent to sterilization, offered in a language they can understand, and set a waiting period between the consent and the sterilization procedure. She is credited with helping to expand the range of public health services for women and children in minority and low-income populations in the United States, Central and South America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East
  Puerto Rican women have also excelled in the fields of Physics and Physiology. Among them Prof. Mayda Velasco and Dr. María Cordero Hardy.
  Physics is the study of the laws and constituents of the material world and encompasses a wide variety of fields, including condensed matter physics, biological physics, astrophysics, particle physics, and others. Prof. Mayda Velasco (PhD) is a professor of physics at Northwestern University. Her research is centered in particle physics. She plays a leadership role in the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC. She is currently the director of the "Colegio de Física Fundamental e Interdiciplinaria de las Ámericas" (College of Fundamental and Interdisciplinary Physics of the Americas) located in San Juan, Puerto Rico.
  Dr. María Cordero Hardy, is a physiologist. Physiology is the study of life, specifically, how cells, tissues, and organisms function. She is a scientist who did her research on vitamin E. Her work helped other scientists understand about how vitamin E works in the human body. She is now a professor at Louisiana State University and teaches students how to be medical technologists. A medical technologist is a person who studies your blood and other body fluids in the human body.
caption: Dr. Helen Rodriguez-Trias
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