Dr. Jeanne Montgomery Smith
"A
doctor who has done significant research and writing, she has
combined an
abiding interest in her family with a real sense of community
concern underlined by her remarkable service to foreign visitors
in Iowa." —Susan K. Boyd, 1981
Dr. Jeanne
Montgomery Smith, the first woman physician to join the Internal
Medicine Department of the University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics,
has taught allergy and immunology to medical students at Iowa
since 1955. She has an international reputation in the epidemiology
of asthma, having originated a new theory of environmental factors
as the cause of this chronic condition now pursued by investigators
throughout the world. With her husband, Dr. Smith founded a new
medical school at East Tennessee University in Johnston City,
Tennessee in 1976-1978. She has written extensively for professional
journals and college textbooks and has also been active in community
service. Born in 1917, Dr. Smith began her career as a surgeon
lieutenant in the men's Canadian Navy during World War II. Smith
was inducted into the Iowa Women's Hall of Fame in 1982.
UPDATE: Smith continued to practice medicine in an academic setting until September
1993, retiring after more than 51 years of practice, teaching,
research, and writing. She and her family have, once again, taken
a refugee family into their home until they could reestablish
themselves. Smith's retirement project, which is already underway,
is to write stories of her eventful life, following the great
changes in medicine and the roles of men and women.
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