Celso-Ramón García

Celso-Ramón García (1922 – February 1, 2004) was an American physician who specialized in reproductive endocrinology and infertility. He oversaw early clinical trials of the first oral contraceptive pill in Puerto Rican women and later became a professor of human reproduction at the University of Pennsylvania.

Early life Celso-Ramón García was born in 1922 to Spanish immigrants in New York City. He completed an undergraduate degree in chemistry at Queens College and then a medical degree at SUNY Downstate Medical Center, graduating in 1945. After an internship at Norwegian Hospital in Brooklyn, he served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps for two years, working at Valley Forge General Hospital in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, and at Ladd Air Force Base in Fairbanks, Alaska. In 1948 he returned to Brooklyn, where he completed his residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Cumberland Hospital.

Career In 1953, due to a lack of academic positions in the U.S., García moved to Puerto Rico to take up a position as assistant professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Puerto Rico's newly established medical school. Soon afterwards he was introduced to Gregory Pincus, who with John Rock was preparing to commence clinical trials of the first oral contraceptive pill. Pincus recruited García to oversee the trials of the pill in Puerto Rico,