Paula Johnson, MD, MPH

You can expect to find cardiologist Paula Johnson on Boston Magazine’s biennial list of the city’s best doctors. She is also on the Institute of Medicine’s roll of national leaders in medicine. In 2007 Mayor Tom Menino appointed her Chair of the Board of the Boston Public Health Commission.

It’s little wonder Dr. Johnson is regularly singled out for honors and tapped for new responsibilities. A visionary and dedicated leader whose mission is to improve the healthcare of women and minorities, she founded the Center for Cardiovascular Disease in Women at Brigham and Women’s. The Center is dedicated to developing new strategies for prevention, treatment and rehabilitation of coronary heart disease in women. Dr. Johnson was also instrumental in creating the Connors Center for Women’s Health and Gender Biology, an innovative, interdisciplinary program that is transforming the health of women by discovering how disease is expressed differently in women and men and putting the results of that leading-edge research into medical practice.

But even a list of glowing achievements and honors can tell only so much. We’ll let Dr. Johnson speak for herself in this video segment from a PBS special with Larry King.