Graduated Harvard Medical School Class of 1984
Lisa I. Iezzoni initially enrolled in a master's program in Health Policy and Management at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She was interested in patient care in addition to global health policy, and so enrolled in Harvard Medical School.
During her first year of medical school, Dr. Iezonni was diagnosed with mulitple sclerosis (MS). She completed her medical degree, and went directly into research rather than internship. Dr. Iezzoni became the first woman to be appointed professor in the department of medicine at Beth Israel Hospital in 1998. She is now the Director of the Mongan Insitute for Health Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital.
"The Americans with Disabilities Act was signed on July 26th, 1990…all of a sudden now, people with disabilities had civil rights. And what happened to me back then could not possibly happen to a Harvard medical student now."
"But what happened that summer when I was taking the two inorganic chemistry semesters was that I’d be jogging along the Charles River, because I liked to be very physically active, and I didn’t know where my legs were in space."
"I had a spinal tap. And at the end of that month, I was diagnosed with MS."
"Now, this was back in January of 1981…this was the first time that I realized that this new diagnosis is going to carry implications beyond my health; it’s going to carry implications for how people are going to treat me and react to me…"
"And he paused and he kind of steepled his fingers and he said, “Well, there’s too many doctors in the country right now for us to worry about training a handicapped physician…"