Lifetime Achievement Award: Dr. Matilde Nino-Murcia

Because of her dedication and commitment as a volunteer and a mentor, Dr. Nino-Murcia was one of many nominees selected nationwide for the IIPY Award: "Being the recipient of this award meant the world to me because it is a recognition of what I've tried to do throughout all these years: help others to succeed. It is also a recognition of my mentors, Drs. Gerald Friedland and Brooke Jeffrey, who have guided and supported me throughout my academic career here at Stanford. As the saying goes, when you walk through the jungle, you need to do what you can to clear a path through the trees so that others can follow. It is this process that I have found to be the most rewarding in my career."

The challenges she has faced as an immigrant are not the only obstacles she has had to overcome in her lifetime. She was born in a very small town about 200 miles from Bogota, the capital of Colombia. While her mother was not able to give her children wealth, she was able to give them an education. As a young girl, Dr. Nino-Murcia originally wanted to be a nurse, but her mother encouraged her to become a physician because she knew her daughter could succeed. And she did. Graduating from high school at sixteen, Dr. Nino-Murcia went on to medical school at the National University of Colombia in Bogota where she was one of only seven women in a class of 90 students. By the time she graduated from the National University of Colombia School of Medicine, she ranked second in her graduating class.

After their internships and one year of service, she and her husband, a medical school classmate, decided to immigrate to the United States. Dr. Nino-Murcia was a twenty-six year old Colombian medical school graduate, wife, and mom when she first arrived in the United States in 1975. "We had professors who had trained in the United States. They were our role models in medical school," she explained to me. "We came here to get better training and preparation to bring back to our medical school in Colombia. However, we stayed, in part, because the political situation in Colombia had become very unstable due to guerrillas and drug trafficking."

Today, the United States feels like her home, but it was not always that way. Learning a new language and culture were challenging, but having someone to learn it with helped: "When I came here, my older daughter was about two and half years old, so I used watch Sesame Street with her--Big Bird, Bert, Ernie, and the Cookie Monster were some of the most effective language instructors of my daughter and me. You can learn amazing things when you must do so to survive, and when your teachers can make you laugh while learning."

Even after she proved her proficiency in English by passing the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL), Dr. Nino-Murcia was devastated to receive only rejections to the fifty letters she sent out to teaching hospitals along the eastern seaboard who told her, "This program does not accept FMGs [foreign medical graduates]." Finally, Dr. Nino-Murcia picked up the phone and called four local hospitals. The fourth hospital was Thomas Jefferson University Hospital in Philadelphia. They had an opening and wanted her to start that week.

Becoming a medical resident in the United States was a major success, but it is not among Dr. Nino-Murcia's proudest achievements. These are personal. Her most significant accomplishment is her daughters. Beaming, she told me, "I am so proud of them. They both went to Stanford. The older one majored in English literature and then went to Berkeley and got her master's in education. She's a high school teacher. My younger one got her undergraduate and master's in earth systems. She works in San Francisco as a consultant for mining companies in South America and Africa, developing strategies to preserve the environment and well-being of the people impacted by the mining industry. They are both very passionate about their work and giving back to the community."

Her second greatest achievement is being a professor in the Stanford Department of Radiology: "It is truly a privilege to be a member of such a great Radiology Department. The people in our Department are very talented, accomplished, and very friendly. It is great to work at a place where you are constantly learning and surrounded by people you look up to." Dr. Nino-Murcia has been at the VA since 1984, where she specializes in applying multidetector computerized tomography technology for the diagnosis, classification, and staging of pancreatic cancer; using positron-emission tomography to evaluate genitourinary tumors; and evaluating gastrointestinal motility disorders in patients with spinal cord injuries.

As she acknowledged in her acceptance speech for the IPPY award, being a foreigner has its advantages: "My background growing up in a rural community outside of the United States and my struggles to learn English and understand a new culture all gave me awesome problem-solving skills, as well as a heightened appreciation for those who mentored me and a strong belief that I should give back to those who follow."

And throughout her professional career, she has given back. Dr. Nino-Murcia has mentored college students interested in health careers, and she continues to serve disadvantaged students by actively participating in the Stanford Health Careers Opportunity Program; the Clinical Shadow Experience for Minority and Disadvantaged College Students; and the School of Medicine Minority Orientation Weekend.