'New' Fellow is 97 years old

By Lola Butcher

Medical students who struggle to get through their training can take inspiration from Marie B. Webster, FACP. She paid her way through college during the depression, earned her medical degree during World War II, retired—twice—and at age 95 was elected a Fellow of the College.

“I didn’t know if I would make it [through medical school] when I was accepted because I was paying my own way, but I was lucky enough to get scholarships the last three years,” she said.

Dr. Webster earned $5 a week as a laboratory technician to help pay for her undergraduate degree in medical bacteriology. She drew blood and examined sputums from factory workers to save money for medical school. She paid six cents a day for breakfast at the university. It all paid off when she graduated from Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1946.

Certified in internal medicine in 1954, Dr. Webster never pursued fellowship during her many years of practice. “I just was busy trying to make a living and when they sent me notices that I could apply I never bothered to get the information together,” she said.

By 2006, her pace of activity had slowed a bit and she finally submitted the paperwork—and was enthusiastically accepted by the credential subcommittee in 2007.

“I would have been delighted to have her as my co-partner in my practice of internal medicine and pleased to be her patient if the need ever arose,” said George Arack, FACP, of Santa Rosa, Calif., in a letter supporting Dr. Webster’s nomination.

Dr. Webster, who will turn 97 years old in July, helped her family doctor put a cast on her brother’s arm while she was still a teenager. That experience, she believes, may have inspired her desire to be a physician. Her family offered moral support, but could provide no financial assistance. She entered the University of Wisconsin in 1930, at the height of the depression, when jobs and money were scarce.

After earning her bachelor’s degree, she worked for several years, saving money until she entered medical school in 1942. Because of the war, she was on an accelerated program in which she graduated in 3½ years, supported by scholarships in her last three years of training.

She completed a residency in medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a fellowship in oncology at the Woman’s Medical College (now Drexel University College of Medicine) and a fellowship in cardiology at the University of California-San Francisco.

After spending 12 years in private practice in Pennsylvania, Dr. Webster set her sights on San Francisco. “I thought I would like to not have to collect money and just have a salary,” Dr. Webster said. “The health department in San Francisco hired me to work in its lung clinics.”

There, she carved a niche that drew on experience gained even before she attended medical school. Back in 1939, she was hired on at Allis Chalmers, a machinery manufacturer, to help with research to determine whether workers exposed to silicon through their work were at a higher risk for developing pulmonary tuberculosis. That’s the first time she uncovered a case of tuberculosis, the disease in which she came to specialize.

In addition to her clinic work with the San Francisco City and County Heath Department, she lectured on tuberculosis around the country. She received special training at the CDC in Atlanta, and was grandfathered by the state of California to interpret chest X-rays.

After retiring from the San Francisco position at age 65, Dr. Webster moved to Sonoma County Health Department to start a new phase of her career. She worked in sexually transmitted disease, tuberculosis, family practice and family planning clinics for the country until she retired for the final time in 1993—at age 83.

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