Antonia Novello

Surgeon General

• Born: August 23, 1944
• Place of Birth: Fajardo, Puerto Rico

PUERTO RICAN–BORN PHYSICIAN AND US SURGEON GENERAL (1990–1993)

As a public health advocate for women, children, and minorities, Novello became the first Hispanic and first woman to serve as United States Surgeon General. Her policies aimed to decrease the incidence of pediatric acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (AIDS) and eliminate health-care disparities, particularly in the Latino community.

AREAS OF ACHIEVEMENT: Medicine; government and politics

Early Life

Antonia Coello Novello was born on August 23, 1944, in Fajardo, Puerto Rico. She was the oldest of three children born to Ana Delia Flores Coello, a schoolteacher, and Antonio Coello. Her parents later divorced, and her mother remarried. Her father died when Novello was eight years old.

Novello was born with megacolon, a birth defect affecting the large intestine. She was not able to receive surgical treatment until she was eighteen years old because her family could not afford transportation to the surgical hospital. Medical treatments at her local hospital instilled in Novello an empathy for patients and inspired her medical career. Novello credits her mother with modeling strong educational values by teaching her math and science and encouraging her to overcome obstacles such as her illness.

Heeding her mother’s advice, Novello graduated from high school when she was only fifteen years old. She attended the University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras on a scholarship and earned a bachelor of science degree (1965). Novello pursued a medical education at the University of Puerto Rico School of Medicine at San Juan, from which she graduated in 1970. During medical school, Novello’s favorite aunt died of renal failure, thus stimulating Novello to study renal diseases. She moved to the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor for her internship, residency, and a fellowship in nephrology in the Department of Internal Medicine (1970–1973). She was the first woman at the medical center to be named intern of the year. Novello relocated to Georgetown University School of Medicine to complete another fellowship in the Department of Pediatrics from 1973 to 1976.

Life’s Work

After the fellowship, Novello entered pediatric private practice in Springfield, Virginia, and became a staff physician at Georgetown University Hospital. In 1978, she joined the Public Health Service Commission Corps (PSCHH) and became project officer at the National Institute of Arthritis, Metabolism, and Digestive Diseases. Novello completed a master’s degree in public health at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Hygiene and Public Health (later renamed the Bloomberg School of Public Health) in 1982. She was promoted to assistant surgeon general of PSCHH in 1986 and also served as the deputy director and coordinator for AIDS research at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, where she published research on pediatric AIDS.

Novello was appointed fourteenth surgeon general of the United States by President George H. W. Bush in 1990. She was both the first Hispanic person and first woman to hold this position. As surgeon general, Novello focused on health care for women, children, and minorities. She raised awareness regarding the maternal transmission of AIDS to newborns, created a workshop that led to the formation of the National Hispanic/Latino Health Initiative, spearheaded the removal of cartoon images from cigarette advertisements, mandated identification checks for the purchase of tobacco products, and discouraged alcohol distribution to minors. She resigned from the position in 1993.

In 1993, Novello was named the PSCHH’s special representative for health and nutrition to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), a position she held until 1996. She subsequently accepted a position as visiting professor of health policy and management at the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health. New York governor George Pataki then appointed Novello state commissioner of health in 1999. She served for seven years, but was charged in 2009 with governmental fraud and theft for using state funds for personal errands. She pleaded guilty to one lesser charge and paid a restitution fee and a fine and completed community service with low-income patients at a New York health clinic.

Novello has received the Public Health Service Commendation Medal, Public Health Service Outstanding Service Medal, Hispanic Heritage Award for Leadership, James Smithson Bicentennial Medal, and Legion of Merit Medal. In 2006, she was a finalist for Hispanic Business magazine’s woman of the year award (2006).

In 2008, Novello was named vice president of women and children health and policy affairs at Disney Children’s Hospital at Florida Hospital in Orlando. She was later named executive director of public health policy at Florida Hospital, retiring in 2014. She married Joseph R. Novello, a former US Navy flight surgeon and psychiatrist, in 1970, but the couple eventually divorced.

After retirement, Novello remained active in helping the people of her native Puerto Rico. In 2017, she took part in the relief effort after Hurricane Maria devastated the island. In 2021, she helped administer COVID-19 vaccines in the island’s capital city of San Juan.

Significance

Novello overcame childhood illness and poverty to become one of the country’s most successful public health leaders. She turned what could have been a discouraging medical diagnosis into motivation to help others gain equal access to health care. Novello is one of the most influential Latino role models in health care and continues to work to improve care for minorities.

Bibliography

"Antonia Novello." National Women's History Museum, October 2021, www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/antonia-novello. Accessed 3 Sept. 2024.

"Changing the Face of Medicine: Dr. Antonia Novello." National Library of Medicine, 17 Mar. 2016, cfmedicine.nlm.nih.gov/physicians/biography‗239.html. Accessed 3 Sept. 2024.

Novello, Antonia C. “Cancer, Minorities, and the Medically Underserved: A Call to Action.” Journal of Cancer Education 21.1 Supplement (2006): S5–S8. Print.

Novello, Antonia C., et al. “Final Report of the United States Department of Health and Human Services Secretary’s Work Group on Pediatric Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection and Disease: Content and Implications.” Pediatrics 84.3 (1989): 547–55. Print.

Olmstead, Mary. Antonia Novello. Chicago: Raintree, 2004. Print.

Wade, N. A., et al. “Decline in Perinatal HIV Transmission in New York State (1997–2000).” Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndromes 36.5 (2004): 1075–82. Print.