In the May 2003 issue of UCSF Magazine, we examined the lives and work of women scientists who continue to colonize the University's new campus in San Francisco's Mission Bay neighborhood. In this second installment, we explore an equally accomplished group of women who represent the more patient-focused side of the health sciences nexus.

Each woman has a different story to tell. Some are mothers. Some are not. Some are long time UCSF faculty members. Some are brand new. No common geography, experience or aspiration binds them. And no history of repeated discrimination motivates them. Yet many acknowledge the existence of an unwritten code of higher-than-normal expectation that is sometimes self-imposed, other times self-conscious, but almost always required of any woman working in health professions once closed to them.

That they have deciphered the code and taken command of their careers is a personal tribute, to be sure. But the biggest winners are the countless patients these women, and the many others like them, are so determined to serve.