Dr. Blanche Sellers Lavizzo was the first African American woman pediatrician in the state of Washington.
She arrived in Seattle in 1956, with her husband Dr. Philip Lavizzo, a general surgeon.
They had left medical practices in New Orleans, Louisiana to pursue a better future in the Pacific Northwest.
She had been in a private practice in pediatrics in Seattle until 1970, when she became the first medical director of the Odessa Brown Children’s Clinic.
In this position she became the mainstay of health care for children in the Central Area and it was she who gave the clinic its motto, “Quality care with dignity.”