Eric Johnson of The Afro-American is reporting that Jane Cooke Wright, a pioneer of chemotherapy treatment, died on Feb. 19 at the age of 93. Dr. Wright was born in 1919 to the first Black staff doctor of a New York hopsital and later police surgeon. She held many different positions throughout her career, including director of Harlem Hospital’s Cancer Research Foundation and professor at New York University Medical Center. She was a member of the President’s Commission on Heart Disease, Cancer and Stroke and founded the American Society of Clinical Oncologists (ASCO).
Johnson writes:
In 1967, Dr. Wright made history when she was named professor of surgery, head of the Cancer Chemotherapy Department and associate dean at New York Medical College. In an era when there were only a few hundred African-American women physicians in the country, Dr. Wright became the highest-ranking Black woman at a nationally recognized medical institution.
During the 1970s, Dr. Wright implemented an expansive program on heart disease, stroke and cancer at New York Medical College and launched a program for doctors to study chemotherapy.
Throughout her 40-year, Dr. Wright wrote over 75 research papers on cancer chemotherapy. She retired in 1987. A family member confirmed to the {New York Times} that she had dementia.
Read more at The Afro-American.
This news brief was written by Kaitlin Higgins.
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