alum

Dr. Margaret “Meg” Fisher ’71

Alumni Award: Achievement

After graduating from Susquehanna University in 1971 with a degree in chemistry, Margaret “Meg” Fisher, M.D., headed for UCLA’s medical school thinking she would focus on neuroscience. Then she discovered pediatrics.

“The children won me over,” says Fisher, who is both the medical director of the Children’s Hospital at Monmouth Medical Center in Long Branch, N.J., and chair of pediatrics at the medical center. “I liked dealing with children much better than dealing with the brain and I haven’t looked back since. They put a smile on your face even when they are sick.”

After earning her medical degree in 1975, the native of Havertown, Pa., completed her residency and a fellowship in infectious diseases at St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in Philadelphia. A national expert on childhood infectious diseases and vaccines, Fisher’s various roles at St. Christopher’s over the course of 25 years included being the hospital epidemiologist and attending physician in pediatric infectious diseases, director of the residency program and associate chair for medical education. Fisher arrived at Monmouth Medical Center in 2000 as its pediatrics chair and became medical director of the children’s hospital when it opened in 2006. Named a “Top Doc” by The (New Jersey) Star-Ledger and Children’s Health, the president-elect of Monmouth’s medical staff is also an award winning teacher on the faculty of Drexel University College of Medicine, the medical center’s Philadelphia-based teaching affiliate.

Given the fact that her paternal grandmother, Lisle S. Forster 1901; her father, the Rev. Robert Forster Fisher ’40, and mother, Miriam Miller ’39 Fisher-Coryell, all graduated from Susquehanna, Fisher says her attendance was a given. “I loved Susquehanna and had a wonderful time there,” she recalls. “And scholastically it was stimulating and challenging. The chemistry department was terrific.”