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[Del Mundo] humorously relates that when she arrived in Boston and went to the dormitory assigned her in a letter from the director of the hospital housing, much to her surprise she found herself in a men’s dorm. Unknowingly the Harvard officials had admitted a female to their all-male student body. But because her record was so strong the head of the pediatrics department saw no reason not to accept her. Thus, upsetting Harvard tradition, she became the first Philippine woman and the only female at the time to be enrolled at the Harvard Medical School.

— Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation biography

• Harvard began admitting female students in 1945, nine years after del Mundo was enrolled in the school. It took nine whole years for Harvard to realize women have brains that work. They must’ve considered her a fluke in the evolution of man until they couldn’t deny it anymore.
• She CAME BACK to the Philippines when any sane person would’ve stayed in the United States, First World country.
• She joined the International RedCross.
• She set up a makeshift hospice, which the Japanese authorities (after the invasion, during the war) later closed down.
• She later headed a children’s hospital, which was converted into a full-care medical center to cope with the casualties of war (WW2)
• “Frustrated by the bureaucratic constraints in working for a government hospital, del Mundo had desired to establish her own pediatric hospital.”
• She sold her home and personal effects to build a hospital.
• She founded the first pediatric hospital in the Philippines
• She lived in the hospital.
• She still lives there, rising daily at five in the morning and continuing to make her daily rounds despite being WHEELCHAIR-BOUND and 99 years old.
• She designed an incubator made out of bamboo for use in rural communities without electrical power.