Marianne J. Legato, M.D., F.A.C.P. is
an internationally known academic physician, author, lecturer
and specialist in women's health. She is a Professor Emerita of Clinical
Medicine at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons, Adjunct
Professor of Medicine at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine,
and the Founder and Director of the Partnership for Women's Health
at Columbia. She is a practicing internist in New York City.
Doctor Legato founded the Partnership for Women's
Health at Columbia in 1997. It is the first collaboration between
academic medicine and the private sector focused solely on gender-specific
medicine. Gender specific medicine is the science of how normal
human biology differs between men and women and of how the diagnosis
and treatment of disease differs as a function of gender.
Widely sought after by professional and lay groups
alike, Dr. Legato has been featured on the national ABC program “"20/20"”in
a segment dealing with gender prejudice in women's health care.
She has made multiple appearances on local and national television
and radio programs, including NBC's “"Good Morning America".,
Good Day New York, the Joan Hamburg Show, The Today Show and the
Oprah Winfrey Show. She has been an invited speaker at over 100
lectures and conferences throughout the United States over the
past two years.
Dr. Legato has received several awards for her
leadership role in women's health, among them the Heart of Gold
award of the Long Island Heart Council and the 1994 Leadership
in Action Award from the Women's Action Alliance. She is listed
in the June, 1994 issue of Mirabella magazine's “"1,000
Women for the Nineties"”, and appeared in the New York
Times list of twelve health care professionals accomplished in
the area of women's health in June, 1997. She was named an “American
Health Hero” by American Health for Women in 1997 and received
the Women's Medical Society of New York's annual Woman in Science
Award in 1997.
Dr. Legato has spent her research career doing
cardiovascular research on the structure and function of the cardiac
cell. Her work was supported by the American Heart Association
and the National Institutes of Health. She won the J. Murray Steele
Award, the Martha Lyon Slater Fellowship and a four year Senior
Investigator Award from the American Heart Association, New York
Affiliate. She won a coveted Research Career Development Award
from the National Institutes of Health and sat on the National
Heart Lung and Blood Institute's study section on cardiovascular
disease. Most recently, she has served as a charter member of the
Advisory Board of the Office of Research on Women's Health of the
National Institutes of Health. She is co-chair of a task force
authoring a report from that Office which will draft a five year
agenda in the field of women's health.
In 1992, Dr. Legato won the American Heart Association's
Blakeslee Award for the best book written for the lay public on
cardiovascular disease with her publication of THE FEMALE HEART:
The Truth About Women and Heart Disease, published by Simon and
Schuster. Her film, “Shattering the Myths: Women and Heart
Disease” won first prize in the category of Women's Health
at The 1995 International Health and Medical Film Festival. She
published a new book: What Women Need to Know, (Simon and Schuster)
in 1997.
Dr. Legato is the editor of The Journal of Gender
Specific Medicine published for the scientific community and of
Gender and Health, published for the lay public. She is on the
editorial board of Cardiovascular Risk Factors and Prevention Magazine.
She writes continuously for both the scientific and lay communities,
and is a consultant in health for the Ladies Home Journal and MORE
Magazine. She is a consultant for several multinational corporations
and provides expertise in the area of women's health.
05/99 |