supplies, and the facilities that an average American is guaranteed. The program also granted medical care to elders, pregnant women, and new immigrants. Gaston received many awards in her lifetime, including the National Medical Association (NMA’s) Lifetime Achievement Award, every honor awarded by the Public Health Service, and even has Marilyn Hughes Gaston Day celebrated each year in Cincinnati and in Lincoln Heights, Ohio. Work on Sickle Cell Disease (SCD) While completing her internship at Philadelphia General Hospital she found her interest in studying more about sickle cell disease when a baby was admitted into the emergency room. This child had a severely swollen hand and no detection of trauma. Gaston was told to run a blood test to check for sickle cell disease, and sure enough, the baby was suffering from a sickle cell infection. The thought of running a blood test for sickle cell disease had never occurred to her, so she became committed to learning all she could about this disease by working with the National Institutes for Health. While proceeding with her study she discovered a revolutionary medical procedure in 1986 that would change the lives of infants that suffer from this disease. She found from her study that children need to be screened to see if they have this disease during their infant years, because if the child does test positive then by the time the child reaches four months of age, they need to start prophylactic therapy while taking penicillin administered orally. By taking penicillin it proves that it can prevent septic infection. This resulted in legislation by Congress for early SCD screenings, so treatment can begin right away. References 1939 births African-American physicians 20th-century American women scientists American pediatricians Women pediatricians American women physicians Living people Miami University alumni University of Cincinnati College of Medicine alumni People from Lincoln Heights, Ohio African-American women physicians 20th-century African-American women 20th-century African-American scientists 21st-century African-American people 21st-century African-American women Members of the National Academy of Medicine