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Join us for the Annual Phoebe S. Leboy Lecture featuring Dr. Vanessa Gamble, University Professor of the Medical Humanities, Professor of Medicine, Professor of Health Policy and American Studies, The George Washington University.

The lecture will be followed by a light reception.

The Phoebe S. Leboy Lecture is awarded annually to an outstanding scholar who catalyzes opportunities for women in academia; the lectureship was created in 2013 by PFWFGE.

Talk Title: Courageous Boundary Crossing: A History of African American Women Physicians

In 1864 when Rebecca Lee Crumpler received her medical degree from the New England Female Medical College, she became the first African American woman physician. In the 160 years since her trailblazing accomplishment, African American women physicians have courageously crossed boundaries of racism and sexism to make valuable contributions to medicine, public health and the African American community. Yet their stories are either frequently absent from the historical record or relegated to the margins as peripheral and unimportant. In this lecture, Dr. Gamble, a physician and medical historian, will discuss her professional and personal quest to remove African American women physicians from history’s shadows. 

Vanessa Northington Gamble, MD, PhD, is University Professor of Medical Humanities at the George Washington University.  She is the first woman and first African American to hold this prestigious, endowed faculty position. At George Washington, she is also Professor of Health Policy and American Studies and Professor of Medicine. In addition, she is an Adjunct Professor of Nursing at the University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing. Throughout her career, Dr. Gamble has worked to promote equity and justice in American medicine and public health.  A physician, scholar, and activist, she is an internationally recognized expert on the history of race and racism in American medicine, health equity, and bioethics.  In 2023, the esteemed British medical journal, The Lancet, profiled Dr. Gamble’s pioneering contributions to the history of American medicine. She is the author of several widely acclaimed publications on the history of race and racism in American medicine. She is currently completing a biography of Dr. Virginia A. Alexander, an African American physician-activist who received her BA from the University of Pennsylvania in 1920. 

Public service has also been a hallmark of her career.  She has served on many boards, including Hampshire College, the Alan Guttmacher Institute, the National Advisory Council for Human Genome Research, the Barbara Bates Center for the History of Nursing, the Penn Med Board, and the National Council on the Humanities.  She chaired the committee that took the lead role in the successful campaign to obtain the 1997 apology from President Clinton for the infamous United States Public Health Syphilis Study at Tuskegee. Dr. Gamble’s many honors include Alpha Omega Alpha, Honor Medical Society membership; Hastings Center Fellow; an honorary degree from SUNY Upstate Medical University; Bogliasco Foundation Center for the Arts and Humanities Fellow; and the Distinguished Graduate Award from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and National Academy of Medicine membership. A proud fourth-generation native of West Philadelphia, Dr. Gamble received her BA from Hampshire College and her M.D. from the PSOM and her Ph.D. in the history and sociology of science from the University of Pennsylvania.