Tenley Albright Profile

"Whatever you do, if you do it the best you can, has a relation to whatever else you do. People have said to me, 'What connection does surgery have to figure skating?'"

In 1956, only months after winning an Olympic Gold Medal, Tenley Albright entered Harvard Medical School. Today she is a surgeon, pioneering new techniques for the detection and treatment of cancer. Dr. Albright is based in Boston and is a member of the Board of Regents of the National Library of Medicine. She is also a member of the U.S. Olympic Committee executive committee, the American College of Sports Medicine, the President's Council on Physical Fitness and Sport, and the American Cancer Society's board of directors. She has also been inducted into the U.S. Figure Skating Association's Hall of Fame.

Albright believes the discipline and dedication she learned on the road to becoming a world champion figure skater helped prepare her for her career in medicine. As a skater, she won five consecutive national championships, and was the first American woman ever to win the world title.