PHILADELPHIA - Mayor Jim Kenney has appointed Farzana Rashid Hossain, MD, an assistant professor of clinical medicine and a gastroenterologist at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, to the Philadelphia Commission for Women to build key relationships and help create equitable opportunities for women at all levels of the Philadelphia workforce.
The Commission has 27 members, 10 appointed by the mayor and 17 appointed by the members of City Council. There have been previous Mayor’s Commissions for Women established by executive order, but this is the first such permanent body.
“It is a wonderful honor to be appointed to the Commission by Mayor Kenney,” said Rashid Hossain. “I am grateful for his confidence in me and am committed to helping women achieve equal opportunities, and contribute to the local economy. I hope to empower girls to follow their scientific passions and take an executive pathway from the lab to the boardroom and look forward to working with my new colleagues to demonstrate that capable women are essential in strategizing and executing long-lasting government policy matters that will enable equal rights for women.”
Rashid Hossain’s honors and awards include the Health Care Heroes Award from Penn Medicine and the Radhika Srinivasan Award for Humanism and Professionalism at the division of Gastroenterology at Penn Medicine.
“Dr. Rashid Hossain is an outstanding physician who is committed to helping the Philadelphia community through her expertise in medicine as well as serving on this important committee,” said Anil K. Rustgi, MD, chief of the division of Gastroenterology. “My colleagues and I take great pride in her selection and are confident that she will be a highly effective voice for women and girls and an outstanding role model.”
She is a member of the medical advisory committee for the local chapter of the Crohn's & Colitis Foundation of America and is on the board of trustees of the Self-Freedom Foundation, a non-profit charitable organization that funds high impact projects in the areas of education, critical healthcare, and special situations that directly benefit underprivileged women and children in developing countries.
Rashid Hossain earned her medical degree at the University of Sheffield in England. She completed her internal medicine and pediatrics residency at MetroHealth Medical Center, Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine and her gastroenterology fellowship at the University of Missouri-Columbia School of Medicine. She also completed a rotation in inflammatory bowel disease at Harvard University.
Penn Medicine is one of the world’s leading academic medical centers, dedicated to the related missions of medical education, biomedical research, excellence in patient care, and community service. The organization consists of the University of Pennsylvania Health System and Penn’s Raymond and Ruth Perelman School of Medicine, founded in 1765 as the nation’s first medical school.
The Perelman School of Medicine is consistently among the nation's top recipients of funding from the National Institutes of Health, with $550 million awarded in the 2022 fiscal year. Home to a proud history of “firsts” in medicine, Penn Medicine teams have pioneered discoveries and innovations that have shaped modern medicine, including recent breakthroughs such as CAR T cell therapy for cancer and the mRNA technology used in COVID-19 vaccines.
The University of Pennsylvania Health System’s patient care facilities stretch from the Susquehanna River in Pennsylvania to the New Jersey shore. These include the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, Penn Presbyterian Medical Center, Chester County Hospital, Lancaster General Health, Penn Medicine Princeton Health, and Pennsylvania Hospital—the nation’s first hospital, founded in 1751. Additional facilities and enterprises include Good Shepherd Penn Partners, Penn Medicine at Home, Lancaster Behavioral Health Hospital, and Princeton House Behavioral Health, among others.
Penn Medicine is an $11.1 billion enterprise powered by more than 49,000 talented faculty and staff.