Dr. Fe Del Mundo: The Pioneer Who Transformed Pediatrics and Child Healthcare in the Philippines

Dr. Fe del Mundo was a female Filipino pediatrician, humanitarian, and advocate of Filipino children, dedicating her life to seven decades of service. Her programs on maternal and child health, preventive medicine, nutrition, vaccination, and family planning transformed the healthcare landscape in the Philippines. Overcoming adversity, she pursued a road less traveled for women of her time. After training in the United States of America, she returned to the Philippines to take care of sick children during the Second World War and later opened the first pediatric hospital in the country. Her research, inventions, and health programs set the groundwork for the improvement of pediatric and childhood outcomes in the country and the world. She is a woman of many firsts, being a beacon for generations of physicians and women. Her legacy endures through the programs she started, the lives she has saved, the doctors she trained, and the institutions she has founded for the welfare of the children she dearly cared for.