Benjy F. Brooks

Benjy Frances Brooks (August 10, 1918 – April 2, 1998) was an American pediatric surgeon affiliated with several hospitals in Houston. She was the first woman in the surgery department at Harvard Medical School and the first woman to become a pediatric surgeon in the state of Texas. Brooks remembered that her fifth-grade teacher told her mother that Brooks was mentally retarded. "I didn't really fit into the sausage mill, to come out a little sausage like everyone else. Unfortunately, that's what our educational system does to children. At times, it takes away their creativeness and the fact that they are different," Brooks explained.

Career Nineteen years old when she earned a bachelor's degree at North Texas State Teacher's College, Brooks stayed at the school for another two years to complete a master's degree. While at Harvard Medical School in 1953, Brooks, along with two other physicians, discovered a treatment for jaundice using gamma globulin. Although this was the tenth surgery of its type to take place in the United States, it was the first to take place in Houston and Brooks was the only member of the surgical team for this operation who was a woman. In the mid-1970s, when Brooks was also the chief of pediatric surgery at Hermann Hospital, there were more than 200 pediatric surgeons in North America, but a small number were female. Brooks once stated that she felt that being a Texan aided in her successful career in the medical field due to the state's history of pioneering women.,

Honors and awards Brooks received outstanding alumni awards from both North Texas State University and the University of Texas Medical Branch. She received the Artist of Life award, given by the International Women's Writing Guild to honor high-achieving women. She received the Horatio Alger Award in 1983. She received this award for her research on birth defects as well as burn treatment. Following her death, the Houston Chronicle referred to Dr. Brooks as a "strong child advocate" because, in addition to the surgeries she performed on children, she also once appeared in court to testify in a case of child abuse. The Benjy Brooks Foundation for Children supports pediatric surgical care in Texas. The Benjy Brooks Foundation for Children was originally erected thanks to the parents of a patient she treated. The foundation provides equipment to hospitals and offers grants to aid in the research of diseases affecting children.