Dr. Virginia Hood (1963) MBBS, MPH, MACP, FRACP, FRCPEd is a highly regarded and accomplished physician, educator, and medical leader whose career has spanned clinical practice, academic medicine, heathcare advancement, and professional leadership at the highest levels. She is a nephrologist at the University of Vermont Health Network and has had a long association with the Robert E. Larner MD College of Medicine, University of Vermont (UVM), where she served as Professor of Medicine. In 2020, Virginia was awarded Professor of Medicine Emerita in recognition of her distinguished service; an honour reserved for faculty who have demonstrated exceptional service and achievement over the course of their careers.

While at MLC School, Virginia was a stand-out, popular student who was known as an all-rounder; accomplished both in academia and sports. In her final year at the School, she was a Prefect, the Booralee House Captain, the Hockey Captain, on the Excelsior Committee and was the winner of the Old Girls’ Union Prize.

After earning her medical degree (MBBS) at the University of Sydney, Virginia completed internal medicine residency training at Mater Misericordiae Hospital, North Sydney, and a nephrology fellowship at Royal Prince Alfred Hospital. She later received a Master’s degree in Public Health from the Harvard School of Public Health, Boston.

Fifty years ago Virginia relocated to Burlington, Vermont, where she built a distinguished academic and clinical career. At the University of Vermont, she became a respected member of the faculty, contributing to medical education, patient care, and institutional leadership within its medical school. She has cared for patients with chronic kidney disease, kidney stones, hypertension and fluid and electrolyte disorders. She has taught acid-base physiology, epidemiology, ethics, and internal medicine to medical students, residents and community physicians.

Her scholarly activity has included acid-base metabolism research, health promotion research in diabetes and obesity prevention, blood pressure control quality improvement activities and high value care. She makes presentations nationally and internationally on kidney stone prevention, chronic kidney disease, medical ethics and professionalism, and high value care.

Throughout her career, Virginia has been known for her dedication to teaching and mentoring medical students and trainees. At the UVM, she contributed to the development of physicians through both classroom instruction and clinical supervision, helping to shape generations of practitioners. Her work reflects a commitment to patient-centered care and the integration of public health principles into clinical practice.

Virginia has said that the education she had in Australia positioned her to have a very gratifying career in medicine and make connections with remarkable people. She has collaborated with the Mohawk people in Akwesasne, a region straddling Canada and the US near her home, working to reduce obesity, especially among children. She worked in concert with the community to improve diets and encourage exercise.

Virginia’s clinical work has been complemented by a strong commitment to professional service and leadership. She achieved national prominence through her involvement with the American College of Physicians (ACP), the largest medical specialty organisation in the United States. In 2011 and 2012, she served as president of the ACP, a role that reflected her standing among peers and her contributions to advancing standards in internal medicine. In 2012 she was made a Master of the College (MACP) in recognition of stellar career accomplishments and service to the College. Currently Virginia is President Emerita of ACP. She has previously held positions within the ACP at both state and national levels, including serving as governor for the Vermont chapter, the Chair of the ACP Ethics, Professionalism and Human Rights committee, and the Chair of the International Council.

Since 2014, Virginia has been a member of the Executive Committee of the International Society of Internal Medicine (ISIM) and is currently the President. She has served as a member of UVM Medical Center Board of Trustees and UVM Health Network Board of Trustees, and as a University of Sydney USA Foundation Trustee.

In 1997, Virginia and her partner Dr H. Lawrence (Larry) McCrorey* attended an international conference on renal disease in indigenous populations -– a long-time interest of Virginia’s – in Yulara, Central Australia. This was the first international meeting specifically devoted to addressing the disproportionately high burden of kidney disease in indigenous and transitional populations.

Seated next to Virginia and Larry at the Conference Dinner was Dr Charles Perkins AO, the first Aboriginal man to graduate from a university in Australia – the University of Sydney in 1966. Virginia says that Dr Perkins and Larry “started chatting and just hit it off”.

The two men were born on opposite sides of the world – Dr McCrorey in Philadelphia and Dr Perkins in Alice Springs. But as they talked, it became clear they had much in common – their shared experiences of being marginalised as people of colour within the dominant society.

Dr McCrorey died in 2009 and in his honour Virginia donated $925,000 to the University of Sydney USA Foundation, to be directed to the Charles Perkins Centre. The multidisciplinary research centre, named for the University of Sydney alumnus they met that night in the desert, aims to combat diabetes, obesity, cardiovascular disease and their related conditions. For Virginia, the Centre’s focus on the lifestyle factors that affect disease, and its emphasis on collaboration across disciplines, resonates with her own work in health-promotion research and nephrology. Virginia says that the donation was also an expression of gratitude to the University that gave her an education, and to her parents, who made it possible.

Virginia’s legacy lies not only in her clinical and academic accomplishments but also in her influence on the medical profession through education, mentorship, national leadership and philanthropic support.

Virginia kindly shared her acceptance speech with us:

Remarks on the occasion of the MLC School 140 year celebration, Alumni Awards event, May 1, 2026.

Good evening everyone,

It’s a great pleasure to be back here at MLC School, celebrating 140 years and recalling five years I very much enjoyed and appreciated. It is especially good to have my sister Elizabeth Main (1965) accompanying me.

Principal Lisa Moloney, MLC School Archivist Barbara Hoffman, Chair of Council, Kylie Bryden-Smith (1989) and MLC School. Thank you for inviting me and for the Award for which I’m most grateful.  

I’m also very grateful to my parents who sent me to MLC School for secondary education because I had told them that I wanted to ‘do science’. They had not gone to university, but recognising my interest, and as at that time, there were extremely few schools that taught physics and higher mathematics to girls, they sent me to MLC School. And for that, I was very grateful because it positioned me to receive a commonwealth scholarship to attend the University of Sydney where I discovered biology and then medicine which has shaped my career for 50 years.

But the School provided me with other opportunities as well as a stellar science and mathematics education. I was able to experience music and art, and that allowed me to enter rich worlds which have sustained me through the years. Although, unlike my sister who is an excellent artist, I can only appreciate the work of others, I am very grateful to Miss Deer who taught art history so well. I’m also thankful to Miss Stark, our English teacher, as I particularly enjoyed drama, was in the drama society and loved reading plays during our English periods. This is an activity that I have pursued until this day in play reading groups in Vermont. And of course, for me there were sports with Miss Duckworth. I loved them all, but especially hockey and gymnastics.

Another benefit was introducing me to students from different regions of the country and world and from different backgrounds that have shaped my thinking and understanding. Sybil Butler (1963), my hockey colleague who remains a good friend, Diney Duff (1963) from Forbes, who left us all too soon and other Boarders from the country and the girls from Tonga. Also Winnie Shih (1963) a good friend, whose parents had left Shanghai. And there were mentors and role models that have shaped my career, Dr Whitley, the Headmistress with a PhD in chemistry, Mr Hale who lead us through Mathematics honors classes and Liz Dennis AC (1960) (now with many national honors) who we all admired so much because she was good at everything. So, I am extremely grateful to all of them and the School for providing me with these many opportunities that have been generative and sustaining forces through my personal and professional life.

I’m confident that MLC School will be maintaining its mission to foster curiosity, compassion, accomplishment and be agents of change, setting young women on a path to fulfill their full potential, which is the key for ‘survival thrival’ in this increasingly complex world.

Tonight, it has been a pleasure to see the young women from the School already demonstrating leadership.

Thank you
Virginia Hood (1963)

* FOOTNOTE

Dr H. Lawrence (Larry) McCrorey was the University of Vermont’s (UVM) most respected and beloved professors. He was a true renaissance man; an academic, a champion of social justice, and an accomplished jazz saxophonist.

When Larry McCrorey joined the UVM department of physiology and biophysics in 1966, he was one of just two Black faculty on campus. He would go on to excel in front of the classroom within his discipline, winning numerous university teaching awards. But Dr McCrorey’s greatest impact on UVM and Vermont communities was through his work to combat racism. He believed that since racism was learned, it could be un-learned or never learned in the first place and he was convinced he could make a difference; which he did.

Speaking on Vermont Public Television in 2002, Larry recalled the challenges that racism presented when he moved into Vermont in the mid-sixties. “When I recognised what was happening here, I said to my boss, Norman Alpert, ‘Look, I don’t want to embarrass you, you brought me here. But I’ve got to fight this stuff. I can’t just be a scientist or just be a professor. I’m going to have to be involved politically.’” Alpert’s response: “If you didn’t get involved politically, I’d be very upset with you.”

Larry addressed America’s inability to come to grips with its racist past and present, and that until that happens, very little will change, and that “in order to know where we’re going, you need to understand where we’ve been”.

At UVM, Larry’s roles would come to include Dean of the School of Allied Health Sciences (now the College of Nursing and Health Sciences), and Associate Vice President for Academic Affairs.

Sadly, Larry McCrorey passed away in 2009 at age 82. He is remember through his words stenciled on a slate blue wall at the north entrance of the McCrorey Gallery at UVM: “Each person needs to look into himself or herself to encounter the racism there, to uncover it, and to finally deal it a death blow. Each of us needs to understand that the price of hating other human beings is loving oneself less."