 "I had a sense of total isolation and desperately needed to talk to other women who had overcome the physical weakness and depression that I was feeling after my heart attack. It was impossible to find any support. My own doctor couldn't help me and suggested that I go see an analyst or join a breast cancer support group." - Jackie |
 "After my heart attack, I felt so alone and isolated. One day I found myself wishing I was alcoholic just so I could go to AA and have someone to talk to." - Judy |
 "I had a "drive-by" heart attack... like I had been abandoned by the roadside. I was not referred to cardiac rehab nor given referrals to any type of support or information. It was like landing on the dark side of Venus." - Nancy |
WomenHeart was founded by three women who had heart attacks while in their 40s and faced many obstacles, including misdiagnosis and social isolation. They were each amazed how little information about or services for women with heart disease were available, and also how the issue seemed invisible within the women's health community. But in March 1998 everything changed for Jackie Markham in New York City, Judy Mingram in Santa Ana, CA, and Nancy Loving in Washington, DC.
The women were individually contacted by Kathleen McAuliffe, a reporter for MORE magazine who was writing an article on women and heart attacks. How she found these three women is a story in itself: Jackie, a public relations executive in New York City, was a friend of Myrna Blyth, the editor of Ladies Home Journal who was getting ready to launch MORE. Myrna knew about Jackie's heart attack, multiple misdiagnoses and the difficult recovery she had. At Jackie's suggestion, Myrna decided to commission an article on women and heart attacks in MORE's premiere issue in September 1998 (click here to read this article.)
After Kathleen interviewed Jackie, she spoke with Phyllis Greenberger, President of the Society for Women's Health Research in Washington, DC, who had also worked with Nancy, knew about her heart attack and then referred Kathleen to her. Kathleen then found Judy through Dr. Mary Ann Malloy in Chicago who had appeared with Judy in 1995 on ABC-TV's "Dateline" story about young women and heart disease.
[These pivotal women played crucial roles in the early development of WomenHeart: Phyllis Greenberger became co-chair of its Scientific Advisory Board, Dr. Malloy served on its first Board from 2000-20002, and Kathleen McAuliffe was the fist recipient of WomenHeart's Wenger Award for Excellence in Communications. In addition, Myrna Blyth was presented with a special WomenHeart Leadership Award.]
After interviewing the three women patients, Kathleen kept in touch and urged them to contact each other, saying, "You're all isolated, you're all depressed, and you're all WHINERS"! Jackie, Judy and Nancy then spoke on the phone for many hours during the next few months but it was not until Kathleen scolded them by saying, "You women need to get your act together!" that they decided to form a national patient advocacy organization which they named "WomenHeart: the National Coalition for Women with Heart Disease." National headquarters was Nancy's dining room table for the first two years, and the group's public offices were actually a rented telephone voice mailbox and postal mailbox. It was not until April 2001 that they moved into office space in Washington, DC.
Things moved very quickly during 1999. One of Jackie's Internet clients donated web design and hosting services for a new web site, while an attorney friend of her stepdaughter filed the organization's incorporation papers and IRS non-profit application pro bono through his law firm, Skadden Arps. At the same time, Nancy worked with Dr. Susan Bennett, a cardiologist at Washington (DC) Hospital Center and WomenHeart's first Medical Advisor, to identify prominent women cardiologists and women's health advocates for a Scientific Advisory Board. She also met with Phyllis Greenberger to develop the organization's by-laws and a list corporations that might fund WomenHeart, while her public relation company's graphic design firm, Crabtree + Company in Falls Church, VA, donated original logo, brochure and letterhead design. And Judy, a software sales executive with Sun Microsystems, helped develop WomenHeart's business plan and continued to conduct numerous media interviews on the group's behalf.
In the fall of 1999, WomenHeart received its first corporate donation of $10,000 from DuPont Pharmaceuticals Company and the organization was on its way! The three women co-founders spent the next few months developing funding proposals and meeting with potential sponsors, as well as with American Heart Association and NIH's National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute staffs. Nancy and Phyllis Greenberger also met with leaders of the national women's health community, and later organized a national coalition of these and other mass membership organizations that wanted to carry WomenHeart's messages to their constituents.
Pfizer also made available to WomenHeart the services of Bass & Howes, a Washington, DC, consulting firm that specialized in incubating women's health organizations. They provided crucial organizational development counsel, offered Capitol Hill contacts and wrote WomenHeart's first strategic plan.
WomenHeart was officially launched on April 1, 2000, during a daylong meeting and awards luncheon in Washington, DC, that was attended by 150 government officials, patient advocates, women's health leaders, coalition members, and its new Scientific Advisory Board. During the luncheon it was announced that WomenHeart's six annual awards for excellence would be named to honor Dr. Nanette Kass Wenger, a prominent cardiologist from Emory University in Atlanta, GA, and long-time advocate for women's heart health. The following morning a 20-member WomenHeart delegation met with White House staff to present their national policy agenda of early detection, accurate diagnosis and proper treatment for all women with heart disease.
So many people helped build WomenHeart during its early formative years. To those who first believed in our vision of justice and dream of improved healthcare, our special and heartfelt thanks:
- Nina Hill, PhD, and Ruth Merkatz, PhD, of Pfizer Inc
- Noreen Sullivan then of DuPont Pharmaceuticals
- Nick Chiromeras of Medtronic, Inc.
- Dennis Cryer, MD, of Bristol-Myers Squibb
- Debra Judelson, MD, of Beverly Hills, CA
- Wanda Jones, DPH, of the federal HHS Office on Women's Health
- Kathy Berra, MSN, and Nancy Houston-Miller, RN, of Stanford University
- Martha Hill, PhD, of Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing
- Ritch Tindall of Eli Lilly and Company
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