Linda Stone, MD

Family Medicine

Since 2000

The Ohio State Unviersity College of Medicine

Dr. Stone has been an inspiration to me over the past 5 years that I have known her. We first met when I was a new member of Ohio State's admissions committee, and there were a few times that we were teamed up on interviews together. I could not only see and hear the compassion that she displayed, but I could literally feel the warmth radiating from her. Her sincere willingness to be completely in the moment is what was so remarkable. Over the past five years, we have worked together on other projects at the medical school including panel discussions, committees and a task force on professionalism, the admissions committee, and as co-advisors for the Ohio State College of Medicine's Gold Humanism Honor Society. She is a wonderful colleague and a true friend, and each day I work with her she inspires me to do my best.

Jane Brown, MD

emergency medicine

1976

Ann Arbor, Michigan

This reminded me of a wonderful student I got to teach in the beginning botany lab when I myself was a graduate student at the University of Michigan. Jane Brown was a farmer who had 10 kids and who had always wanted to become a doctor. At the age of 50 or so, she persuaded a dean at Michigan to agree to let her into the medical school if she passed the undergraduate requirements (lots of science classes, including botany). Thirty years later, I learned from the U of Michigan alumni magazine that she had indeed gotten into medical school, become a doctor, and was still practicing emergency medicine in her late 70s! She has been an inspiration to me ever since I first met her in 1976.

Later I became a historian of science and medicine, a publisher of books on consumer health, public health, and history of medicine, and finally a freelance exhibition curator. All along the way, Jane's example helped me as I changed fields. I'm very proud that an exhibition I created--A State of Health: New Jersey's Medical Heritage--will be displayed alongside Changing the Face of Medicine at the New Brunswick Free Public Library (New Brunswick, NJ).

Nafisa Tejpar, MD

General Surgery

2004-2005

Orlando, Florida

I am so grateful to have Dr. Nafisa Tejpar as my surgeon, a human being and a professional who embodies everything friends and I talk about we wish we could have in our physicians. To me it is even more amazing to find that in a surgeon! One of the things that struck me right away is that I was taken to her office and she talked with me before taking me to the exam room. She is no-nonsense, straightforward, but truly cares and treats her patients as human beings. I loved that instead of getting defensive with my questions, she answered each fully. It matters to her to continue learning so that she can provide the best options for her patients. In addition to her commitment to provide the best possible care to her patients, she holds herself and others around to a standard of excellence, yet is not arrogant.

Dr. Tejpar became a surgeon over 25 years ago when there were very few women in surgery. She graduated from a medical school in another country and obtained a surgical residency in the United States, in spite of the fierce competition. I have no doubt that she faced prejudice as a woman, as a physician educated in a foreign medical school and as a person of another culture, especially in such a competitive and tough area of medicine. She faced it again coming to community that was not diverse or very open at that time and built a successful practice that depended on referrals from other doctors, few of whom were female.

It is clear that her brilliant mind, her exceptional skill, her care, her commitment to the best possible care of her patients, and her own determination and resiliency has earned her the respect of colleagues and patient alike and has made it possible for me to receive such excellent care. I know she is human and adverse events or outcomes can happen, but I'll take my chances with her any day.

Finally, I admire her courage, not only for choosing surgery and overcoming incredible obstacles over many years, but for continuing to provide surgical care in this time of increased risk of litigation, decreased reimbursement, increasing hassles as a solo practitioner, and such despair among colleagues. I asked her once how she does it and she said "I love medicine". We are indeed lucky to have Dr. Tejpar and all the other courageous women in medicine who have had to swim against the current to achieve their dreams. They are models for all of us, no matter what our calling.

Marlene Bielecki

I don't really have a story but my Aunt is a doctor and I think she deserves recognition, even if she never did anything super notable in her life I still know that she has saved and helped alot of people. She inspires me to help people no matter what, and wether or not they can pay me.

Jacqueline Perry

Rehabilitation Medicine

1968-present

Rancho Los Amigos National Medical Center

Jacquelin Perry, M.D., is a woman who has made far more distinguished contributions to patients and the field of orthopedic surgery than most of us can envision. Born in Denver, Colorado, she received her bachelor's in physical education at the University of California, Los Angeles. She then joined the army and trained to be a physical therapist, receiving a certificate in physical therapy from Walter Reed Army General Hospital in Washington, D.C.

She served in the army as a physical therapist for five years prior to attending medical school at her alma mater, UCLA. She completed a residency in general surgery at Children's Hospital, San Francisco and a residency in orthopedic surgery at the University of California, San Francisco. Immediately following her residencies in 1955, Dr. Perry joined the medical staff at Rancho Los Amigos, where she found an environment that suited her interest in human function and allowed her to flourish.

Dr. Perry has always had a passion for improving the function of her patients. This was undoubtedly influenced by her early career as a physical therapist and then as an orthopedic resident exposed to pioneering gait research being conducted in the Biomechanics Laboratory at U.C. San Francisco in the late 1940s and 1950s under the direction of Dr. Verne Inman.

Early in her career she recognized the critical importance of objective tools to measure the effects of disease and interventions. When available systems for measuring human performance sufficed, she used them with particular flair and effectiveness. When they did not, she either refined existing systems or developed new technologies. She helped bring these tools into the computer age, making them both practical and effective. Using such tools, she studied and compared the effectiveness of various forms of bracing and prostheses, and total joint replacements, resection arthroplasty and other surgical interventions.

Perhaps more importantly, Dr. Perry recognized the power of functional analysis to measure what the physician could not observe and used this additional information to enhance the predictability of surgery. Her landmark studies of cerebral palsy using EMG to ascertain dynamic function of unseen muscles best exemplify these efforts. To understand such results at the clinical level, she undertook basic investigations into such aspects as EMG-force relationships.

There is hardly a disease process affecting function which she did not address: amputees at all levels, rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, diabetes, dysvascular patients, chronic inflammation, dislocations, ligament injury. Her rigorous scientific publications reflect her particular concern for those patients with neuromuscular conditions: multiple sclerosis, myelomeningocole, cerebral palsy, spinal cord injury, paraplegia, polio, stroke. Her interests had no limit and included the very young whose function had been impaired by birth defects or injury such as myelomeningocole and cerebral palsy, to the active adult in sports, to the aged feeble with dysvascular problems and stroke. In these groups of patients she studied virtually all forms of functional assists from canes, to crutches, braces, and wheelchairs.

Dr. Perry founded Rancho Los Amigos National Rehabilitation Center's Pathokinesiology Laboratory in 1968. The Lab has served as a launching point for the careers of numerous physicians and scientists over the years, as well as a center for the investigation and dissemination of innovative assessment tools and interventions for thousands of patients, who have Dr. Perry's patience and persistence to tank for the improvement ion their quality of life. Currently Dr. Perry is a medical consultant to the Lab.

Dr. Perry's interests have been directed to all aspects of human performance, including recreational activities. She explored throwing, swimming, gymnastics, tennis, volleyball, golf, running, baseball (batting, pitching), and the effects of injury in many of these endeavors in both professional and recreational athletes. Her investigations included those related to virtually all musculoskeletal regions: the shoulder, elbow, hip, knee, ankle, foot, cervical spine, lumbar spine, for she realized all of these areas contribute to an effectively functioning individual.

While numbers of publications per se do not directly reflect on the impact of an individual's career, when they relate to distinct contributions and are published in many high-quality peer-review journals, they reflect a significant body of work. Dr. Perry has contributed over 200 peer-review archival publications. The fact that she has published more than nine peer review articles per year during the past five years reflects on her astonishing and continuing dedication and commitment. However, it is not enough to simply conduct well-designed studies. One must effectively and practically communicate them, and this Dr. Perry accomplished both in presentation and in writing. Her clarity should serve as a model to those who would attempt to emulate her.

She authored what most consider the classic textbook on gait. While one can find any number of textbooks on the subject, few would doubt, if one could own only one, it would be her book.

If she is long remembered as a major contributor to the orthopedic knowledge, Dr. Perry is as meticulous a clinician as a researcher. In her early orthopedic career she concentrated her clinical efforts on polio patients and the treatment of paralytic scoliosis. Later, she treated many of the same patients with post-polio syndrome. Patients have sought consultation for her unique post-polio expertise from around the country. Each patient's medical condition is rigorously analyzed, the neuromusculoskeletal cause of the complaint identified, and the treatment prescribed. She has kept countless patients ambulatory and functional due to her unique skills.

Active in organizations, she has authored a number of instructional course lectures for the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons.

Dr. Perry has the unique skills to clinically identify a neurologic, muscular or skeletal problem responsible for a patient's functional impairment. She has the scientific skills to critically analyze the problem, using various scientific methodologies, and identify the best method of treatment. Dr. Perry has always had in mind the use of this new knowledge to help the individual patient, and in this sense has made a career of becoming the ultimate clinician-scientist.

I spent three years with Dr. Perry as a therapist in the Pathokinesiology Lab, from 1981 through 1983. It was my privilege to meet and work with this living legend. She expanded my horizons in terms of the science of rehabilitation as well as the scope of the human spirit and its desire to fully express the potential of every one of us. Dr. Perry, your efforts changed and continue to change the face of medicine. Thank you and best wishes for continued success.