When President George H.W. Bush tapped Dr. Antonia Novello to be Surgeon General, she could hardly believe her ears. She was both the first woman and the first Latin American ever to serve as the nation's number one public health officer. She had come a long way from the little town of Fajardo, Puerto Rico, where her widowed mother had struggled to raise a child who was sick from birth. Overlooked in the public health system of her native island, Antonia waited 18 years for the operation that allowed her to live a normal life. Undaunted by illness, discomfort or harship, she...