Following the success of our foreign service program last February, we will now explore how two village members chose to pursue a career in medicine. What inspired Doris Aronson and Ann Labriola to go to medical school before it was common for women to do so? What role did serendipity play in the course of their careers or the specialties in which they landed? Join us for this informal presentation moderated by Naomi Collins and learn more about your fellow members.
In 1982, Ann Labriola received her MD at Georgetown University Medical Center, was board certified in Internal Medicine in 1985 and in1987 she completed her sub-specialty training in Infectious Diseases (ID) at George Washington University Medical Center followed by employment as an clinical instructor and ID researcher at the same institution.
During her training/research years, the HIV/AIDS epidemic exploded. In 1988, she accepted an appointment in the ID Division at the Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center in Washington DC. In addition to assuming the regular duties of a staff physician with hospital and clinic rotations, teaching students and fellows and administrative duties, she was asked to start an HIV clinic and to establish an HIV clinical research center there.
She spent over 25 years as the HIV Research Director of the ID Section at the VA. She was responsible for overseeing a research staff at the VA site and for recruiting other VA sites across the country to participate in numerous large NIH-funded multicenter and multinational studies in HIV/AIDS clinical research. Some of these studies included over 4000 patients worldwide and helped change the course of HIV from a death sentence to a chronic disease. She was the Site-Principal Investigator for several of these large studies and co-authored peer reviewed articles related to this work. She retired in 2015.
Doris Menache Aronson received her medical degree in 1961 from the Medical School in Paris , France. In 1970 she was appointed Professor of Hematology, Immunology (biologist).at Centre Hospistalier Bichat-Beaujon University Paris VII. She spent the first 20 years of her professional life in Paris working first at the National Transfusion Center. In 1970 she was appointed Professor of Immunology and Hematology (specialty Biology). In this capacity she established a new department of hematology with laboratories located in two teaching hospitals totaling 1,300 beds. The laboratories employed 65 people. She also had teaching responsibilities for medical students and graduate students
Dr Aronson moved to the US in 1978 and worked for the next 20 years at the American Red Cross, National Headquarters, Washington, D.C. She was first appointed Head of the Plasma Derivatives Laboratory, and later Medical Officer and Director Medical Affairs, Plasma Operations, Biomedical Services. She has served on several committees to include WH0 and NIH and published in many peer review journals.