Delores Brisbon, the former chief operating officer of the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, shown here during an event at which she read from the second volume of her autobiography: "A Privileged Life II: Wisdom from My Journey ”, at the Temple University Blockson Collection, in Philadelphia, Tuesday, March 19, 2024.Delores Brisbon’s first job at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania was as the head nurse of a neurology unit. That was in 1959.
“But you can have a privileged life, even if your life started in struggle,” she told the audience at Temple. Brisbon told her near capacity audience at Blockson that she once stood 5-foot-11, and would wear three-inch heels when she walked the corridors of HUP. “I would describe her as being bright, decisive, thoughtful, a doer. You don’t hit a lot of home runs in a job like this. There’s not one major accomplishment; it’s a series of accomplishments over a period of years that demonstrates a remarkable capacity to perform well. That’s an unusual skill, to deal in a complex environment, and to be well-supported and respected by the medical faculty. And I happen to know she is.