“I feel that if you give the world the best that you can, the best will always come back to you.” – Fe Del Mundo
Dr. Fe Del Mundo (1911-2011) was a Filipina pediatrician. Del Mundo’s passion for pursuing a medical career originated from her childhood, as ignorance around pediatric health led to most of her siblings passing away as children. Motivated by grief, del Mundo studied medicine and earned her medical degree as the valedictorian at the University of Philippines (1933). Former President Manuel Quezon offered to pay for her further medical training anywhere in the United States. In the U.S., she earned an M.S. in bacteriology (1940) and completed a research fellowship at Harvard Medical School’s Children’s Hospital (1939 – 1941). Immediately after her fellowship, she returned to the Philippines motivated to work towards improving pediatric health care. Unfortunately, Japanese occupation of the country delayed her plans to start her practice, as she instead cared to children at an internment camp at the University of Santo Tomas. Caring for over 400 children and earning the moniker “The Angel of Santo Tomas”, the Mayor of Manila invited her to run a children’s hospital in the city. After her term as the hospital’s director from 1943 to 1948, she became the director of the Department of Pediatrics at Far Eastern University. During this time, del Mundo studied cures for conditions such as dengue fever and jaundice and improved accessibility to health care for impoverished families. Later in 1957, she opened her own hospital in Quezon City, which has continued to grow and thrive until today. For her contributions towards the medical field, she was the first Filipino woman to be declared a National Scientist of the Philippines. Dr. del Mundo was also an honorary member of the American Pediatric Society and a consultant for the World Health Organization.