Plenty of Stamina

Marjorie Jones, MD, UMDNJ-New Jersey Medical School ’60

Fifty years ago, when she started medical school at Seton Hall College of Medicine, which is now NJMS, Marjorie Jones’s male classmates told her she was taking a spot that should have gone to a man. “All we women – there were nine out of a class of eighty – were going to do was get married and have children. We were never going to practice medicine.” She can laugh about this now, especially because she is still practicing pediatrics.

Born in Harlem, this mother of three, who married just before residency, opened her own practice in 1966 and still works from her home in Bergen County four days a week. In addition, Jones runs a clinic at Holy Name Hospital in Teaneck for children whose parents can’t afford medical care, is on staff at Englewood Hospital and serves as physician for the Hackensack school system. “I cover five elementary schools and one middle school, doing physicals, testing and immunizations.” She even found time and energy to go to Haiti last year on a medical mission. “There was so much trauma there.” Still in love with medicine after all these years, she says, “I have plenty of stamina.” Those poor guys back in 1956 had no idea who they were dealing with.