Anna Marie Ledgerwood, MD, FACS, will receive the Dr. Mary Edwards Walker Inspiring Women in Surgery Award during Convocation tonight. The award, which honors a surgeon who has advanced women in surgery, recognizes Dr. Ledgerwood’s status as a groundbreaking contributor to trauma surgery.
Dr. Ledgerwood, who is a general and trauma surgeon at Detroit Receiving Hospital and Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, Michigan, has had a long and prominent career.
She has remained at Detroit Receiving Hospital for the entirety of her career. Her tenure includes 40 years as a full professor (affiliated with Wayne State University), roles as General Surgery Residency Program director and trauma director, and a reputation for an exceptionally strong work ethic. To wit: after 53 years as an attending physician, Dr. Ledgerwood continues to take general surgery calls at the hospital, planning to retire only on her 85th birthday next March.
In addition to providing trauma care, she has contributed to advancing trauma surgery by participating in the development of the ACS Committee of Trauma’s (COT) Verification, Review, and Consultation program, which she has described as “pretty important to quite a lot of hospitals.” The program, created in the mid-1980s, has become a mainstay in verification of trauma centers and has heavily influenced the development of accreditation and verification programs in other surgical disciplines.
Alongside her longstanding close colleague, Charles E. Lucas, MD, FACS, Dr. Ledgerwood helped her hospital, the Detroit Receiving Hospital, become the first ACS-verified Level I trauma center in the state of Michigan.
Dr. Ledgerwood’s leadership at the ACS extends past the COT to include roles as the president of the Michigan ACS Chapter, a member of the Committee of Trauma and Board of Governors, and a First Vice-President of the Board of Regents. A Fellow of the ACS since 1975, she was the first woman to deliver the Scudder Oration on Trauma (1996), presented the Olga Jonasson Lecture in 2008, and has been named an Icon in Surgery by the College.
She also has been prominent as a leader in numerous other organizations. Most notably, Dr. Ledgerwood was the first woman to serve as president of the Academy of Surgery of Detroit, the Midwest Surgical Association, The American Association for the Surgery of Trauma, and American Surgical Association.
Her work to advance women in surgery also includes having served as a member of the ACS Committee on Women’s Issues. Dr. Ledgerwood is widely known for her mentorship to generations of junior colleagues, particularly women surgeons, in her own institution, which trains approximately half of all physicians in Michigan. For these efforts, she won the Nina Starr Braunwald Award from the Association of Women Surgeons.
The Inspiring Women in Surgery Award is presented annually at Clinical Congress in recognition of an individual’s contributions to the advancement of women in the field of surgery. The award honors the fortitude and accomplishments of Mary Edwards Walker, MD, the first female surgeon to serve in the US Army and the only female recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor.
