Antonia Novello

Antonia Coello was born on August 23, 1944, in Fajardo, Puerto Rico. When she was a young girl she suffered from an abnormality of the colon. Her father passed away when she was barely eight years old. When she was a child her mother, a school teacher and later high school principal, always stressed the importance of education. This might also have been why Antonia graduated high school at the young age of 15. She attended the University of Puerto Rico, at Rio Piedras. Also, she had a surgery which resulted in complications for her next two years. Later on, at the age of 20, she traveled to the U.S for treatment which “resolved her complications.” She received her Bachelor of Science degree at Rio Piedras in 1965, and her Doctor of Medicine degree from the University of Puerto Rico at San Juan in 1970. In that same year she married Joseph R. Novello. In 1978, Novello joined the Public Health Service Commissioned Corps, her first assignment being as a project officer at the National Institute of Arthritis, Metabolism and Digestive Diseases of the National Institutes of Health. She held the job of Deputy Director of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in 1986. In 1990, President George Bush appointed Antonia Novello to be Surgeon General of the United States. She was both the first woman and the first Latin American to be appointed to this post. When she left office, she joined UNICEF, and traveled the world, from Peru to Nepal. Since 2008, Antonia Novello has been Vice President for Women's and Children's Health and Policy Affairs at Disney Children's Hospital at Florida Hospital in Orlando