The Changing Face of Medicine: Dr. Marilyn A. Roubidoux

The National Library of Medicine has organized an exhibition honoring the lives and accomplishments of women doctors who are making a difference in the world of medicine. The exhibition, "Changing the Face of Medicine: Celebrating America's Women Physicians" is on display at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Tribal Connections will devote a space each month to featuring accomplished Native American women doctors from this exhibit.

Marilyn A. Roubidoux, M.D., a member of the Sioux and Iowa Nations, works to bring existing medical tools to the underserved to diagnose cancer and identify risk factors for the disease. Dr. Roubidoux has seen high incidences of cancer among American Indian and Alaska Native populations from a personal and a medical perspective. As a researcher, teacher, and physician, she is tackling the issue in a number of ways – and by drawing national attention to this health disparity and raising awareness within at-risk communities.

Dr. Roubidoux didn't enroll in medical school until she was 32 years old. Eleven years after graduating magna cum laude from Brigham Young University with a bachelor of science in microbiology in 1969, she earned her doctor of medicine degree from the University of Utah School of Medicine in 1984. After a residency at the University of California, Irvine, she joined Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina as a resident in radiology and a fellow in abdominal imaging, before becoming an assistant professor of radiology there. Since 1992, she has been on the staff of the University of Michigan School of Medicine, becoming an associate professor in 1998.

Dr. Roubidoux's two major areas of research are cancer among American Indian and Alaska Native populations, and breast disease. Cancer has affected Roubidoux's ancestors and relatives, so she takes particular satisfaction in knowing that she is helping her biological family as well as her larger ancestral family. She has been able to combine the family life she always wanted with the career she considered her personal mission. She is married to a physician and radiologist and has raised three daughters – all born before she entered medical school.

Dr. Roubidoux is widely published on the topic of cancer in American Indian populations and lectures regularly on the subject around the country. She is also a member of the Society of Breast Imaging, the Network for Cancer Control Research among American Indians and Alaska Natives, and the American Association of Indian Physicians.

To view the entire profile of Dr. Roubidoux, please visit http://www.nlm.nih.gov/changingthefaceofmedicine/physicians/biography_281.html