Jacqueline Anne Noonan

Jacqueline Anne Noonan graduated in chemistry from the Albertus Magnus College, New Haven in 1950, and received her medical education from the University of Vermont, in her home town Burlington, graduating in 1954. She then interned at Memorial Hospital, University of North Carolina, before concentrating her efforts in paediatrics. She was educated in paediatric cardiology by one of the pioneers, Dr. Alexander S. Nadas at the Children’s Hospital in Boston, and in 1959 she was appointed as the first paediatric cardiologist at the University of Iowa.

In 1961 she moved to a subordinate professorship at the newly developed medical school at the University of Kentucky. She remained with this institution, becoming professor of her speciality in 1969. From 1974 she was chairman at he department of paediatrics.

Noonan has played an active part in a number of professional bodies, among them American Academy of Pediatrics, American Board of Pediatrics, American College of Cardiology and American Heart Association. She has contributed some 60 original articles, an equal number of abstracts, and some twenty-five contributions to textbooks and collections.

In 1971 Noonan was honoured with the Helen B. Frazer Award, in 1985 Harpers Bazaar’s Best Women Doctors in America, and later The Best Doctors in America award.