Fe del Mundo

Fe Villanueva del Mundo,, (born Fé Primitiva del Mundo y Villanueva; 27 November 1911 – 6 August 2011) was a Filipina pediatrician.

She founded the first pediatric hospital in the Philippines and is known for shaping the modern child healthcare system in the Philippines.

Her pioneering work in pediatrics in the Philippines while in active medical practice spanned eight decades.

Del Mundo was born at 120 Cabildo Street in the district of Intramuros, Manila, on November 27, 1911.

She was one of eight children of Bernardo del Mundo and Paz (née Villanueva; d. 1925).

Her family home was opposite the Manila Cathedral.

Bernardo was a prominent lawyer from Marinduque who served one term in the Philippine Assembly representing the province of Tayabas.

Three of her eight siblings died in infancy, while an older sister died from appendicitis at age 11.

The death of her younger sister Elisa, who had made known her desire to become a doctor for the poor, inspired del Mundo to choose a career in medicine.

In 1926, del Mundo enrolled at the UP College of Medicine, at the original campus of the University of the Philippines in Manila.

She earned her medical degree in 1933, graduating as class valedictorian.

She passed the medical board exam that same year, placing third among the examinees.

Her exposure while in medical school to various health conditions afflicting children in the provinces, particularly in Marinduque, led her to choose pediatrics as her specialization.

After del Mundo graduated from UPM, President Manuel Quezon offered to pay for her further training, in a medical field of her choice, at any school in the United States.

Del Mundo has sometimes been said to have been Harvard Medical School's first woman student, the first woman enrolled in pediatrics at the school, or its first Asian student.

However, according to an archivist at Harvard's Center for the History of Medicine,

"While Dr. Del Mundo was remarkable in many ways, the evidence that she was a medical student at Harvard Medical School is largely anecdotal and not well sourced. As far as my research using Harvard Medical School catalogs and records shows, she earned her Medical Degree from the University of the Philippines Manila in 1933, and in 1936, came to Boston to further her studies in pediatrics. The fact that Harvard Medical School did not admit women students and Dr. Del Mundo already earned her medical degree suggests that she was not admitted as a student, even in error, and I cannot find proof that she graduated from Harvard Medical School... Instead, it seems more likely that she completed graduate work at Harvard Medical School through an appointment at Boston Children’s Hospital... del Mundo is listed as an Assistant Physician at Boston Children’s Hospital, and a Research Fellow in Pediatrics in 1940.

Del Mundo returned to Harvard Medical School's Children's Hospital in 1939 for a two-year research fellowship.

She also enrolled at the Boston University School of Medicine, earning a Master's degree in bacteriology in 1940.

Del Mundo returned to the Philippines in 1941, shortly before the Japanese invasion of the country.

She joined the International Red Cross and volunteered to care for child-internees then detained at the University of Santo Tomas internment camp for foreign nationals.

She set up a makeshift hospice within the internment camp, and her activities led her to be known as "The Angel of Santo Tomas".

After the Japanese authorities shut down the hospice in 1943, del Mundo was asked by Manila mayor León Guinto to head a children's hospital under the auspices of the city government.

The hospital was later converted into a full-care medical center to cope with the mounting casualties during the Battle of Manila, and would be renamed the North General Hospital (later, the Jose R. Reyes Memorial Medical Center).

Del Mundo would remain the hospital's director until 1948.

Del Mundo joined the faculty of the University of Santo Tomas, then the Far Eastern University in 1954.

She became the head of the Department of Pediatrics at Far Eastern University - Nicanor Reyes Medical Foundation for more than two decades.

During this time, she founded the Children's Medical Center Foundation in 1957.

She also established a small medical pediatric clinic to pursue a private practice and established the Institute of Maternal and Child Health, an institution that trains doctors and nurses.

Frustrated by the bureaucratic constraints in working for a government hospital, del Mundo desired to establish her own pediatric hospital.

Towards that end, she sold her home and most of her personal effects, and obtained a sizable loan from the GSIS (the Government Service Insurance System) in order to finance the construction of her own hospital.

The Children's Medical Center, a 107-bed hospital located in Quezon City, was inaugurated in 1957 as the first pediatric hospital in the Philippines.

In 1958, del Mundo conveyed her personal ownership of the hospital to a board of trustees.

The hospital was expanded in 1966 through the establishment of an Institute of Maternal and Child Health, the first institution of its kind in Asia.

She gained international recognition, including the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Public Service in 1977.

Further suggesting that she was a graduate student and not a medical student, in her autobiographical statement in Women Physicians of the World (1977), Dr. Del Mundo explains "I spent three years of my postgraduate studies at the Children’s Hospital in Boston and at Harvard Medical School, one year at the University of Chicago, six months at Johns Hopkins Hospital, and short terms in various pediatric institutions, all to round out my training.""

Harvard had had thousands of Asian students by the time Del Mundo arrived there.

In 1980, she was conferred the rank and title of National Scientist of the Philippines, and in 2010, she was conferred the Order of Lakandula.

She was the first female president of the Philippine Pediatric Society and the first woman to be named National Scientist of the Philippines in 1980.

She was also the founder and the first president of the Philippine Pediatric Society, the first Asian to be elected president of the Philippine Medical Association in its 65-years existence, and the first Asian to be voted president of the Medical Woman's International Association.