Dr. Donna M. Mendes: pioneer in the operating room: trailblazing vascular surgeon focuses on cardiovascular health

DONNA M. Mendes never dreamed of being a doctor. As the middle of three children growing up in the one-square-mile Long Island town of Roosevelt, N.Y.--hometown of basketball legend Julius (Dr. J) Erving and comedian Eddie Murphy--she says she never even thought about it. At that time and in that place, little Black girls didn't really dream those kinds of dreams.

That Mendes became a doctor--a surgeon, no less, and the first African-American female vascular surgeon certified by the American Board of Surgery--came down, ultimately, to possibility.

And with that possibility came a passion for Black women's health issues--particularly heart disease. "There was no burning desire. I wasn't running around with a stethoscope listening to my doll's heart," says Dr. Mendes, chief of vascular surgery at St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center (St. Luke's division) in Manhattan and assistant clinical professor of surgery at Columbia University. "I didn't set my sights on being a doctor because it just wasn't something I was really exposed to."

That exposure came when Mendes was an undergraduate at Hofstra University, making A's in classes where pre-medicine students struggled to keep up. At that time, she knew that she wanted to work in a hospital, and chose speech therapy as a way in. But the more Mendes continued to do well in those pre-medicine classes, the more she began to think about what could be.

And with the support of her parents, Benjamin and Bernice Mendes, who now live in Orlando, she made the decision that would change her life. "So, I said to my Dad, 'I think I'm going to go to medical school,'" Mendes says. "And he said, 'OK, babe. That's good.'"

Mendes changed her major to pre-medicine and began looking at medical schools with the help of Beatryce Nivens, who at that time was a counselor at Hofstra. The two have remained friends. Nivens, who now is an author and outplacement specialist, recalls her first impressions of Mendes.

"Right away, I discovered that she was a very talented person, and I thought that she would go very far in her career," says Nivens of Guttenburg, N.J. "She was a very dedicated student who put her studies before anything else. She had a lot of goals in terms of becoming a doctor, and that was very unusual, particularly for a Black woman at that particular time."

Although, during that time, most African-Americans attended Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tenn., or Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, D.C., Mendes says that because she wanted to stay in New York, she applied to and was accepted at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons. "I will say that it might have been during the time when they [Columbia] were trying to attract more Blacks," says Mendes, who lives in Englewood, N.J., with her husband of 18 years, Ronald LaMotte, an institutional investment and asset advisor. "But we all know that we still had things we had to jump over, so I was very happy to have gotten there."

It was toward the end of her third year of medical school during a surgical rotation that Mendes was encouraged to pursue a career in surgery. She chose peripheral vascular surgery--the "vascular of car diovascular," which is the treatment of the vessels that branch out of the heart. Those vessels can be affected by risk factors such as hypertension, high cholesterol, diabetes, stroke, smoking and a family history, and can become blocked with plaque--the so-called "hardening of the arteries"--which can require bypass surgery.

Mendes says that her father, in particular, always encouraged his children in their choices (sister Sharon Poulson is an event planner and brother Damon is a musician). So she reached for that possibility not knowing that she was leading the way.

"When I decided to do vascular surgery, I had no idea that I would be the first Black female certified in the country," Mendes says. "Little did I know that I was trailblazing anything. I was just working."

In her long career, that work has included a dedication to advancing health care for the often-overlooked populations, particularly Black women. As one of the physicians who participated in the video produced by the Association of Black Cardiologists Center for Women's Health, Heart Health for the Generations: A Guide for African-American Women, Mendes wants to educate the African-American female community about the dangers of heart disease, which is America's No. 1 killer of women.

Because the death rate from heart disease after heart attack is 69 percent higher in African-American women than in White women, and because some of the risk factors for heart disease--hypertension, diabetes, obesity and lack of exercise--are prevalent among Sisters, she also feels a sense of urgency.

For the most part, Mendes says, we know what must be done to live a more healthful life. We just need to do it. If you've got time to get a manicure or pedicure, she says, you've got time to exercise and see your doctor. When it comes to heart health, you have to make the time.