When Lois left this earth on the day before Yom Kippur, September 18, the world mourned. Word of her passing traveled from Santa Barbara to her “cousins” across the globe — Los Angeles, Israel, Spain, and beyond. Our inboxes at the Sansum Diabetes Research Institute were soon bursting with condolences and stories from patients whose lives had been forever changed by her gifted approach as a physician.
During my years following her around, soaking up as much wisdom as possible, she shared many stories. Some of my favorites were her reflections of simplistic pearls about her day-to-day life as a mother to her beloved two children, Kevin and Larisa. As a mother in New York City, she would use the N.Y.C. Museum of Modern Art as a playground. She also talked a lot about how proud she was of her grown children and their successful lives and her extraordinary grandchildren, Larisa’s Caitlyn and Madeline and Kevin’s Luke and Dylan.
My other favorite stories were about the challenges of being a mother in medicine with the added challenge of having type 1 diabetes. As both a physician and mother in the 1970s at Cornell, she needed to hide her pregnancies until she delivered. She’d later tuck her infants under the nurses’ station so she could do the rounds on her patients, her brazen tenacity opening doors that were previously closed to women. Lois was “leaning in” well before it was popular to do so. Dr. Lois Jovanovič was an exceptional speaker and teacher with an extraordinary stage presence.