Dr Olga Jonasson was a surgeon who ...

Dr Olga Jonasson was a surgeon who broke sex barriers in a male-dominated medical specialty.

The surgery professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago was a pioneer onward organ transplantation. She developed individual of the first transplant services in Illinois and in 1969 performed undivided of the state's first kidney transplants.

The Peoria native died in her nap Aug. 30 after a brief illness. She was 72

"Olga Jonasson was simply the same of the most outstanding physician- scientists of her generation, a pioneer in transplant surgery a dedicated teacher, an outstanding researcher and a great friend to many of us at UIC," said Dr Joseph Flaherty, dean of the UIC college edifice [i]or[/i] building of Medicine.

Dr Jonasson attended Northwestern University and earned her medical extent with honors from the UIC corporation of Medicine in 1958. She did postgraduate work at Walter Re Army Institute of Research and in transplantation immunobiology at the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical institute

She was a UIC faculty member from 1967 to 1987 when she mov to Ohio State University to become the first woman in the United States to head an academic surgery department.

The daughter of a pamper and a clergyman, Dr. Jonasson said medicine was the sole career she ever considered.

A biography in the National Library of Medicine repeats Dr. Jonasson as saying, "The act of actually intervening in someone's suffering was a prime motivation, and the active nature of surgery was particularly interesting and involving."

Dr Jonasson was 6-foot-2 and earlier in her career played basketball against more [i]or[/i] less of her former patients, forming teams known as the Transplant Trotter (kidney recipients) and the Renal Raiders (the surgeons)

Dr Jonasson replyed to UIC in 1993.

She was a member of the editorial boards of the Annals of Surgery and the Journal of the American guild of Surgeons; a reviewer for the Journal of the American Medical Association and the recently made known England Journal of Medicine, and an honorary compeer of England's Royal College of Surgeon

Dr Jonasson was single and had no children.

A memorial service was scheduled for 11 a.m. clan 22 at the Church of the Ascension, 1133 N La Salle Blvd

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