Welcome to Public Health On Call, a podcast from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health,

where we bring evidence, experience, and perspective to make sense of today's leading health challenges.

If you have questions or ideas for us, please send an email to Public Health Question at jh.edu.

That's Public Health Question at jh.edu for future podcast episodes.

This is Lindsay Smith Rogers.

Today, a conversation with Dr. Antonia Novello, who served as the 14th Surgeon General of the United States, appointed by President George H.W. Bush in 1989.

Dr. Novello was the first female and first Hispanic Surgeon General in U.S. history.

She speaks with Dr. Josh Sharfstein about her remarkable life and career, from her

childhood in Puerto Rico, to her time studying public health at Johns Hopkins, to her pioneering

service to the nation. She also talks about her new autobiography, which is chock full of

amazing stories. Let's listen.

Dr. Antonia Novello, it is an honor to have you on public health on call. I just finished reading your book, which is called Judy Calls, Lessons Learned from an Unexpected Life of Service. How are you doing

this morning? I'm doing fine. We are just at the library of President Bush

with a tour of the book, and he has been a very successful one. Well, we will be talking about President

Bush who appointed you to be Surgeon General in this conversation, but I want to start a little bit

earlier. You grew up in Puerto Rico.

Could you talk about your life there in the book?

You talk a lot about how you had some illnesses that really focused you on your studies and on medicine.

Yeah.

I was born with Hirshpren's disease, which is basically a genetic, aganglionic megacoleum. And so basically from the age of my birth to my 18th birthday, I had one of the parts of the syndrome, which was constipation.

Because, you know, it can be accompanied by Mongolism, deafness, cardiac disease, spina bifida.

And it seems to me that if God only gave me constipation,

...