Alexa Canady

Alexa Irene Canady (born November 7, 1950) is a retired American medical doctor specializing in pediatric neurosurgery.

She was born in Lansing, Michigan and earned both her bachelors and medical degree from the University of Michigan.

This came after Ruth Kerr Jakoby became the first American woman to be board certified in neurosurgery in 1961.

She graduated with honors from Lansing Everett High School in 1967.

Before university, Alexa Canady was nominated as a National Achievement Scholar in 1967.

Canady attended the University of Michigan where she received her B.S. degree in zoology in 1971 and became a member of Delta Sigma Theta.

Her time at the University of Michigan was not without its struggles; she almost dropped out of college at one point due to a "crisis of confidence".

She had originally chosen to major in mathematics but she soon realized that math was not her passion.

Then she learned of a minority health careers program at her university and decided to pursue it.

This program helped her realize that her passion was in the medical field.

She would then go on to receive her M.D. with cum laude honors from the University of Michigan Medical School in 1975 where she joined the Alpha Omega Alpha medical honor society.

While in medical school she was also recognized by the American Medical Women's Association.

Despite her achievements in medical school, Canady felt as if she, and the other female students, were often overlooked by the professors.

This only encouraged her to work harder.

Although she initially had an interest in internal medicine, Canady decided on neurosurgery after falling in love with neurology during her first two years of medical school.

She settled on this specialty against the recommendations of her advisors.

Knowing that gaining a residency as a black student would be difficult, Canady began building her résumé, reading many articles and attending every conference and seminar she could, sometimes asking questions just to get known in the small field.

Her appreciation for the fluidity of human anatomy would serve her well in her competitive field.

She then became a surgical intern at the Yale-New Haven Hospital from 1975 to 1976, rotating under William F. Collins.

Although an exceptional student, she still faced prejudice and discriminatory comments as she was both the first black and female intern in the program.

On her first day as an intern, she was told that "you must be our new equal-opportunity package".

After completing her residency at the University of Minnesota in 1981, she became the first black woman to become a neurosurgeon.

Canady specialized in pediatric neurosurgery and was the chief of neurosurgery at the Children's Hospital in Michigan from 1987 until her partial retirement in 2001.

In addition to surgery, she also conducted research and was a professor of neurosurgery at Wayne State University.

In 1989, Canady was inducted into the Michigan Women's Hall of Fame, and in 1993 she also received the American Medical Women's Association President's Award.

Canady was known amongst her peers as a patient-focused surgeon who cared deeply about each of her patients.

Alexa Irene Canady was born in Lansing, Michigan to Elizabeth Hortense (Golden) Canady and Clinton Canady, Jr. Her mother was an educator and former national president of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc. She also spent years being active in civic affairs within the city of Lansing.

In addition she was the first African American to be elected to the Lansing Board of Education.

Her father was a dentist.

After her retirement, she moved to Florida and maintained a part-time practice at Pensacola's Sacred Heart Hospital until her full retirement in January 2012.

Her parents attended Fisk University, where they met and later married on her mother's 19th birthday right before her father's deployment during World War II.

Her father was also a graduate of Dentistry of Meharry Medical College.

Canady's parents taught her about the importance of education and hard work as a child, which would ultimately help her graduate from high school with honors.

Canady and her younger brother were raised outside of Lansing and were the only two African-American students in their school.

Her mother being a former President of Delta Sigma Theta and her father a dentist, she was taught the importance of education from an early age.

Her mother once told her, "Let them make you the token — so what if you're the token black girl. Take that token and spend it."

She faced prejudice in school; in one instance, a family member who was training in psychology tested her at a young age for intelligence, and when she scored highly on the exam, her family was surprised because her performance in school was only average.

They later discovered that her teacher had been switching her test scores with a white student to cover up her intelligence.

She faced many obstacles throughout her school years.

However, despite these obstacles, Canady stood out among her peers academically, both in the classroom and by earning high scores on her tests in school.