Dr. Antonia Coello Novello was born in Fajardo, Puerto Rico. She graduated from the University of Puerto Rico with a B.S. and an M.D. She completed her residency/internship in pediatrics at University of Michigan, and a fellowship in pediatric nephrology at the University of Michiganand Georgetown University. Also, she received a Masters and a doctor of public health from Johns Hopkins University. In 1990, Dr. Antonia Novello was sworn as the fourteenth Surgeon General of the U.S. Public Health Service, and became the first woman and the first Hispanic ever to hold this position.
