29 November 2012
The granddaughter of Cape Verdean immigrant workers, Patricia Andrade is the chief of surgery at St. Luke’s Hospital in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and one of the best surgeons in the area in the realm of oncology and gynecology, specializing in the treatment of women with breast cancer. Patricia Andrade recently won the YWCA’s Yvonne M. Drayton Award for voluntary work. In 2000, she had been nominated for the local Woman of the Year award.
This specialist has triumphed over various difficulties. She was raised, along with four siblings, by her mother after her father passed away while she was still in middle school. At 51 years of age, she admits that many people have helped her throughout her life. “I’m a driven person. I’m a determined person,” she says.
But she also believes in her family, especially to guide her. "When I think about my grandparents who immigrated to this country, they were very smart, very bright people. They just happened to be born in a time when certain opportunities weren’t available to them," she laments.
Her father Armando joined the United States Army at 17, and her mother, Ezabel, was a housewife who attended secretary school in New Bedford. “My parents were very bright people. My father would’ve had a very different life if he had had opportunities. My mom, the same thing,” she says.
Patricia Andrade was the first chairperson of the New Bedford Boars of Health, a position she held for fifteen years. She is a member of St. Luke’s Hospital’s Medical Executive Commission and has served as president of the YWCA for southeastern Massachusetts. She also co-chairs the Cape Verdean Maritime Exhibit Committee at the New Bedford Whaling Museum, is a Whaling Museum trustee and a member of the Board of Trustees for Bristol Community College.
"Growing up, it was just expected that we do well in school. My parents didn’t put an emphasis on college, because neither of them went, but education was just a given expectation,” affirms the Cape Verdean, who dreamed of being a physician from a very young age. “It was an idea I had since I was I was in elementary school. I liked science. We dissected a frog in school one time, and I remember how I found that so interesting. I’m sure that had a lot to do in piquing my interest in surgery,” she says.
While a student at New Bedford High School in the 1970s, Andrade participated in a counseling, tutoring and financial aid program for low-income middle students. “It was a very useful program for me,” she says.
Patricia Andrade graduated from New Bedford High School and was admitted to Wellesley College before going to Dartmouth College Medical School. She did her residency at Miriam Hospital, in Providence, Rhode Island. “I originally wanted to be a pediatrician, but in your third year, you do everything— medicine, surgery, psychiatric— and when I did pediatrics, I just didn’t fit. When I did gynecological surgery, I really liked it,” she tells.
In 1995, she returned to her hometown and opened her own private practice, but was not entirely successful in the business venture. “You absolutely have to be part of a group, or you cannot survive,” admits Andrade, who joined the SouthCoast Hospital Group four years ago.
Today, in addition to her work as a physician, Patricia Andrade is the proud mother of a 12-year-old girl. “The difference now is I absolutely expect college from her, and she knows it,” stresses Andrade with a laugh.
to read the original article (in English), click onhttp://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20121127/SCBULLETIN/212030312