Bertha Bouroncle, MD, was a Peruvian-American hematologist. Bouroncle graduated from San Marcos Medical School in Peru in 1947, the only woman in her class. In 1948, she left Peru to complete a postdoctoral fellowship at The Ohio State University, becoming the first woman in Ohio to serve as a chief resident. Bouroncle spent her entire career at Ohio State, becoming a full professor in 1970 and a professor emerita in 1989. In 1958, Bouroncle was the first to identify hairy cell leukemia (HCL) as a distinct disease. Working with colleagues, she developed a treatment for HCL, deoxycoformycin (also called pentostatin), that is still an option today.
