People A-Z  /  Linda Brodsky, MD

Overview

Born in 1952 on Long Island, New York, Linda Brodsky graduated from Bryn Mawr College in 1974 followed by medical school at the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, now Drexel University. She completed her residency at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, NY in Ear, Nose and Throat surgery. In 1983, she moved to Buffalo, NY, where she took a full-time faculty position in the State University of New York at Buffalo Medical School and at the Children’s Hospital of Buffalo (now the Women and Children’s Hospital of Buffalo). She rose to director of the hospital’s Center for Pediatric Otolaryngology and Communication Disorders and published a number of award-winning papers. In 1996 she was the first woman to achieve Full Professor at the University of Buffalo School of Medicine in ENT.

She authored or co-authored numerous scientific papers in peer reviewed journals and over twenty book chapters. With her colleague, Joan Arvedson, PhD, she wrote a book on pediatric swallowing and feeding disorders, entitled Pediatric Swallowing and Feeding: Assessment and Management, first published in 1993, and now a classic in the field. She was a member of the Triological Society, an elite organization that admits only academically accomplished ENT surgeons. Dr. Brodsky introduced the “Brodsky Classification” for tonsillar disease, a diagnostic tool used internationally. She published articles in The International Journal of Pediatric Otorhinolaryngology, Acta Otolaryngologica and The Journal of Respiratory Diseases among others.

In 1998, she began a multi-year court battle against the university and hospital for gender-based discrimination and Equal Pay Act violations that was settled in 2007. In 1999, she established Pediatric Ear, Nose and Throat Associates, to provide pediatric otolaryngology services in the Western New York area. She founded the online Women MD Resources to help women in the medical profession fight discrimination, improve pay to female doctors, advocate for more flexible schedules and increase the number of women in executive positions. Since her death in 2014, this resource has been maintained by the American Medical Women’s Association of which Dr. Brodsky was a lifetime member. The Linda Brodsky Memorial Journal supports the annual Linda Brodsky MD Essay Award that honors women who have mentored, inspired, and encouraged students to become physicians.