This Women’s History Month, the Cancer History Project is documenting the lives of women who have shaped oncology.
Recently, Robert Winn, director of VCU Massey Comprehensive Cancer Center, and guest editor of The Cancer Letter and the Cancer History Project—has conducted interviews with Vivian Pinn, the first full-time director of the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health, and Monica Baskin, the only Black woman deputy director of an NCI-designated cancer center, UPMC Hillman, in an effort to document the impact of their work. Winn’s interview with Baskin appears in this issue of The Cancer Letter.
The Cancer History Project has created a women in oncology tag to continue documenting the contributions of women to the field.
Spotlight: Vivian Pinn
Before her legendary career at NIH, Vivian Pinn was the second Black woman to graduate from UVA med school
By Cancer History Project, March 1, 2024
On her first day of medical school at the University of Virginia in 1963, Vivian Pinn waited for the other students who looked like her to show up.
“The other women and other people of color must be late,” she remembers thinking, glancing around at the crowd of white men in the auditorium before her.
Then they called the roll.
“And I’m sitting in the back and I see, everybody’s there,” she said in a conversation with Robert Winn.
In 1967, Pinn became the second Black woman to graduate from University of Virginia School of Medicine.
In 1982, she was the first African American woman to chair an academic pathology department in the United States, at Howard University College of Medicine.
She went on to become the first full-time director of the Office of Research on Women’s Health at NIH in 1991.
Charlottesville wasn’t fully integrated when Pinn began medical school.
Quote of the week
I get a smile on my face whenever I put another woman or a person of color or a person in a minority group into a leadership position, because we need to support each other and give each other opportunities. It makes me very happy when I can do that.
Candace Johnson
The Cancer History Project: Women in oncology
- Edith Mitchell, medical oncologist, champion of health equity, and brigadier general, dies at 76
By The Cancer Letter, Jan. 26, 2024
- 50th Anniversary of the Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center Podcast Series – Female Pioneers
By Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center, June 28, 2023
- Angel in Mink, The Story of Mary Lasker’s Crusade for Medical Research and The National Institutes of Health
By ACT for NIH Foundation, March 24, 2023
- Carol Fabian on breast cancer prevention and tissue sampling using fine needle aspiration
By Cancer History Project, March 25, 2022
- Ernestine Hambrick receives 2022 Dr. Mary Edwards Walker Inspiring Women in Surgery Award
By American College of Surgeons, March 16, 2023
- Kay Dickersin: How NBCC started Project LEAD to teach science to breast cancer patients
By Cancer History Project, Jan. 13, 2023
- Anna Jeanes: A Founder’s Dream Fulfilled
By Fox Chase Cancer Center, March 2, 2022
- Anna Gray to the Rescue
By Fox Chase Cancer Center, March 1, 2022
- Beatrice Mintz, PhD, pioneering researcher at Fox Chase, dies at 100
By Fox Chase Cancer Center, Jan. 7, 2022
- Patricia Ganz on how survivorship went from being an outlier to the mainstream
By Cancer History Project, Nov. 19, 2021
- Susan Love on breast cancer activism in the 1990s
By Cancer History Project Oct. 22, 2021
- Narjust Florez: “To all minority fellows, residents, and medical students—you belong in medicine”
By The Cancer Letter, Sept.15, 2021
- How 1960s activism shaped the movement that resulted in the DOD breast cancer program
By Cancer History Project, Sept.10, 2021
- Women in Science: Candace Johnson, PhD
By Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, June 21, 2021
These stories and more appear on the Cancer History Project’s archive of notable women in oncology.
This column features the latest posts to the Cancer History Project by our growing list of contributors.
The Cancer History Project is a free, web-based, collaborative resource intended to mark the 50th anniversary of the National Cancer Act and designed to continue in perpetuity. The objective is to assemble a robust collection of historical documents and make them freely available.
Access to the Cancer History Project is open to the public at CancerHistoryProject.com. You can also follow us on Twitter at @CancerHistProj, or follow our podcast.
Is your institution a contributor to the Cancer History Project? Eligible institutions include cancer centers, advocacy groups, professional societies, pharmaceutical companies, and key organizations in oncology.
To apply to become a contributor, please contact admin@cancerhistoryproject.com.
