In honor of Black History Month, UNMC Today has highlighted the contributions of African-Americans in medicine. The seven-part series ends today with Alexa Canady, the first, black, female neurosurgeon in the United States.
Alexa Canady – the first, black, female neurosurgeon in the United States
In May 1984, Alexa Canady, M.D., was certified by the Board of Neurological Surgery as the first, black, female neurosurgeon in the United States. She was 34-years-old. For the past 18 years, Canady has been the chief of neurosurgery and the Peter Schotanus endowed professor of pediatric surgery at Children’s Hospital in Michigan.
No one would describe performing neurosurgery on a child as fun, but it’s an attitude that Canady, 51, maintains to deal with her young patients. She enjoys her work so much that she resigned from the Henry Ford Hospital after a year because there weren’t enough pediatric cases. A native of Lansing, Mich., Canady was 16-years-old when she enrolled at the University of Michigan, where she earned a bachelor’s of science degree and doctor of medicine degree. She served her surgical internship at Yale-New Haven Hospital in Connecticut, her residency in neurosurgery at the University of Minnesota Hospitals, and her pediatric neurosurgery fellowship at Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia.
In reflecting upon her mission to America’s children, she said: “Children are easy to manage. They usually don’t know how sick they are, so they aren’t as terrified as their parents. I also don’t find working with the parents tough either, because one of the fun things I do is help them to grow to the circumstances. I help parents learn how to be effective, caring providers…In many ways, medicine is a spiritual and emotional thing. I like that we are a part of people’s families.” (Taken from the August 2001 Black Enterprise magazine: “America’s Leading Black Physicians.”)