Dr. Andrea Hayes Dixon, Howard's first Black woman dean in the College of Medicine

(Washington, DC) -- Howard University is appointing the first Black woman to serve as dean of the College of Medicine.

Doctor Andrea A. Hayes Dixon was the first surgeon in the world to perform a high-risk, life-saving stomach cancer procedure on teens.

She also recently became the first woman to chair Howard's Department of Surgery.

Dixon says "educating the nation's next generation of leaders in medicine is an enormous responsibility that I take very seriously."

She takes on the role in early October.