El veintitrés de agosto/August 23rd
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A Puerto Rican physician and public health administrator who served as the 14th Surgeon General of the United States (1990-1993), Coello Novello was the first woman and the first Latina to serve in this position. Born in Fajardo, Puerto Rico, she was the oldest of three children. After her father died when she was eight, she was raised mostly by her schoolteacher mother, who emphasized the importance of education. Coello suffered from congenital megacolon, which had been diagnosed at birth, and she was in and out of hospitals her entire childhood. She finally had surgery at age 18 to help with the pain. This experience motivated her to become a doctor to help others suffering as she had. She graduated from the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine in San Juan in 1970 (the same year she married her husband, US Navy flight surgeon and children's psychiatrist Joseph Novello), then moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan for a pediatric internship at the University of Michigan. From there she moved to Georgetown University for a residency in pediatric nephrology. As Surgeon General, she focused special attention of improving the health of women, children, and minorities. She later worked as the Commissioner of Health for the State of New York (1999-2006) and then became the Executive Director of Public Health Policy at Florida Hospital - Orlando, a position from which she retired in 2014. See a 1989 NY Times article on Novello after her appointment to Surgeon General HERE.
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