Early Life
Siti Hasmah was born in Klang, Selangor on July 12, 1926 and obtained her MBBS from the University of Malaya in Singapore. Often a pioneer in her profession, Tun Dr. Siti Hasmah was one of the first Malay women to enroll for a medical course at the King Edward VII College of Medicine in Singapore after World War II.
In 1955 she graduated as a medical doctor from the Faculty of Medicine, Universiti Malaya, which was then located in Singapore. She subsequently joined the government health service. She was one of the first Malay woman doctors in then Malaya. She married Mahathir the following year in August. Their first child, Marina, was born in 1957.
In the 1960s, she attended a public health certificate program in the University of Michigan.
Ten years later, she became the first woman to be appointed Medical Officer in the Maternal and Child Health Department, and in 1974, she was the first woman to be appointed the State Maternal and Child Health Officer.
Siti Hasmah is the author of several articles on family medicine and the socioeconomic factors associated with pregnancy and childbearing in Malaysia.
Read more about this topic: Siti Hasmah Mohamad Ali
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