Honorary Guest

2014 – Dr. Doris A. Howell

Dr. Doris Howell is a pediatric hematologist/oncologist and an internationally renowned leader in pediatrics, women’s health, and hospice care. Dr. Howell earned her M.D. at McGill University’s Medical School. She has served as a faculty member at the Harvard University and Duke University Schools of Medicine, as the first female Chair of the Department of Pediatrics at the Medical College of Pennsylvania (where she was the first woman to chair a pediatrics department at a medical school in the United States), as the first female Chair of the UCSD School of Medicine’s Department of Community and Family Medicine, and as the Founder of the San Diego Hospice and Institute of Palliative Medicine. She joined the UC San Diego faculty forty years ago in 1974, and celebrated her 90th birthday in December 2013 on what the City of San Diego designated as “Doris Howell Day” in recognition and appreciation of her life’s accomplishments. In 1995 the Soroptimists honored Dr. Howell by establishing a foundation in her name, the Doris A. Howell Foundation for Women’s Health Research. The Howell Foundation – in which Dr. Howell remains active – awards undergraduate research scholarships annually as part of its activities. She never stops giving.