Dorothy Lavinia Brown, MD, a surgeon and Tennessee lawmaker, is the sole woman in the 2017 class of inductees into the Tennessee Health Care Hall of Fame.

Brown spent her childhood in an orphanage and grew up to become the first African American woman surgeon in the South. Later in her career, she served as chief of surgery at Nashville's Riverside Hospital. She was also the first African American woman to be made a fellow of the American College of Surgeons.

[Also: Doctor Dorothy Lavinia Brown.]

Brown, who died in 2004, was the first African American woman to be elected to the Tennessee legislature, the chief of surgery at Riverside Hospital in Nashville and clinical professor of surgery at Meharry Medical College. She was an advocate for women’s health, rights and education. She was also the first single woman in Tennessee to be granted the chance to become an adoptive parent.

Brown is one of six people in this third class of inductees. The class was selected from more than 30 nominees who have made significant contributions to medicine or healthcare. The other inductees in this class are:

William “Bill” Frist, MD, who was inducted last October. Frist is a former U.S. Senator and Majority Leader, a Nobel Prize winner.

Joel Gordon, a 47-year industry veteran who introduced physician ownership/joint ventures as a business model.

Harry Jacobson, MD, is a physician, entrepreneur and investor who founded/co-founded eight companies. He served as vice chancellor for health affairs at Vanderbilt University and was a one-time CEO of Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Stanford Moore, a biochemist, received the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1972 for his work with proteins and their composition, which led to the first understanding of the complete chemical structure of protein. His work fueled decades of scientific research in disease and drug discovery.

Donald Pinkel, MD, was the first director and CEO of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital who received many awards for research.