NYTS Urban Angel Dr. Muriel Petioni passes away at the age of 97

Friends, today’s New York Times has the news that Dr. Muriel Petioni, a great friend of NYTS and a past Urban Angel, has passed away at age 97 after an incredible life of leadership and service. I know you all join me in mourning her loss and celebrating her tremendous accomplishments as a pioneering physician, community health activist, and source of inspiration for many generations. We were blessed by her warm and powerful presence in our community. Let us hold her family in prayer as we celebrate her life. Information about funeral arrangements will be forthcoming.

“She was the family physician to Harlem’s political elite — the Rangels and the Percy Suttons, among them — but treated so many thousands of others, too, that she identified many public health issues before they hit the epidemiologists’ radar.

She was preaching against sugar, junk food and obesity in the early 1950s, when she first hung her shingle at 114 West 131st Street (charging $2 for an office visit and $3 for house calls). Her dietary warning — “You’re digging your grave with your fork” — became a trademark, as did the motherly finger-pointing that usually accompanied it.”

Quoted text was taken from the New York Times article remembering Dr. Petioni. Please click on the link for more information on her: http://goo.gl/W6CPy