My regular readers know that on occasion, I’ll profile an individual who personifies core values I believe in. Last week, I came across someone who falls into that category. The Cape Cod Times ran an obituary on a remarkable woman, Dr. Renee B. O’Sullivan. Dr. O’Sullivan seemed to live by my own personal core values of hard work and perseverance. Here’s her story; read along and you’ll see why.
Ahead of Her Time
Dr. O’Sullivan lived to be 96 years old. She was born in Boston in 1930, at a time when women who entered college were usually steered toward teaching, nursing, and support roles. But Dr. O’Sullivan aspired to something else. She graduated from Bennington College in Vermont in 1951 with the audacious intent to pursue a career in medicine. She did just that when she earned her medical degree from the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1955, graduating first in her class with several awards. She became an assistant resident at Children’s Hospital Medical Center and Massachusetts General Hospital, and served as a teaching fellow at Harvard Medical School. She completed surgical training in Boston, then pursued plastic and reconstructive surgery at New York Hospital—Cornell Medical Center. Upon graduation in1962, she became the first woman plastic and reconstructive surgeon in New England.
After completing her medical training, she spent three years in Indonesia, where she advanced reconstructive techniques and mentored the local physicians. She also founded a burn clinic. She returned to Boston in 1965 and established a practice in plastic and reconstructive surgery. There, she served not only as a surgeon, but as a teacher to residents at numerous Boston-based hospitals including Harvard Medical School, Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, and many more.
Eventually, Dr. O’Sullivan became a founding member and served as vice president of the Massachusetts Chapter of the American Trauma Society, a charter member of the Northeastern Society of Plastic Surgeons, a trustee of the Boston County Medical Library, a member of many local and national medical, plastics and reconstructive societies, and a fellow of the American College of Surgeons. She wrote numerous articles, and advocated for women in medicine throughout her career.
In 2004, she was awarded the Massachusetts Medical Society’s Special Award for Excellence in Medical Service.
A Woman of Character
Dr. O’Sullivan’s obituary includes her love of travel, family history, animals and chocolate, athletics, the sea, and sailing, making her a woman after my heart! One thing missing is any overt mention of our shared values of hard work and perseverance. Yet those values, to me, are what enabled her to succeed at a time when the odds were stacked against women in what were then non-traditional fields.
I suspect Dr.O’Sullivan encountered resistance, met with doubt, and had to surmount obstacles at every stage of her education and professional development in the medical field. Although not called out, the core values of hard work and perseverance are written in hidden ink throughout Dr. O’Sullivan’s impressive life story. Her story speaks for itself and I leave it to you to reflect on the evidence of the power of hard work and perseverance when the path to success is littered with obstacles.
Look in the mirror: Think about a time when you had to rely on hard work and/or perseverance to succeed and how can you use those stories to motivate others?
Please join me again next time for more on Leading with Character.
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