[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 156 (Tuesday, October 16, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2148]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




     HONORING DR. ADINA GALICH, M.D., FOR HER MANY YEARS OF SERVICE

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                          HON. DANIEL LIPINSKI

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                       Tuesday, October 16, 2007

  Mr. LIPINSKI. Madam Speaker, I rise today to honor a distinguished 
physician in my district, Dr. Adina Galich, M.D., who celebrated her 
80th birthday this past summer. For 50 years, Dr. Galich has ably 
served the people of Berwyn and has been a true pioneer for female 
doctors throughout Illinois.
  From an early age, Dr. Galich overcame great adversity. She grew up 
in Nazi-occupied Belgrade, where she remembers her family running 
through burning streets after their home was bombed. After her father's 
death, Dr. Galich took over the family real estate business at the age 
of 15, which was soon confiscated by the postwar communist Yugoslav 
Government.
  In 1952, Dr. Galich graduated magna cum laude from medical school. 
Dr. Galich was finally able to obtain a visa and immigrate to the 
United States after the Yugoslav Government branded her and her family 
``class enemies.'' When she arrived in Chicago, she became the first 
woman at Chicago Mount Sinai Hospital to specialize in internal 
medicine, though only permitted to teach and not practice. Dr. Galich 
was the lone female physician in her 1956 class.
  Throughout Dr. Galich's career, she has committed herself to treating 
those most in need. While training in internal medicine she also worked 
at the Chicago Board of Health's Infectious Diseases Department. Later, 
Dr. Galich was among a group of physicians who founded the Union Health 
Service, an organization created to provide health care to members of 
the Janitors' and Doormen's Union.
  Dr. Galich continued to be a trailblazer for female physicians into 
the 1960s, when she became the first female internist on the staff at 
MacNeal Hospital in Berwyn. Later, she became the first female 
physician to open a private practice in the city.
  It is my honor today to commend Dr. Adina Galich, M.D., for her 
outstanding service to the Berwyn community for over half a century. 
Dr. Galich has triumphed over great adversity, challenged the 
perceptions of female physicians, and opened the doors for countless 
women to follow.

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