COURAGE
Cherokee County’s Finest:
Dr. Jill Mabley
Strong. Indomitable. Fearless. Frontrunner. What image do these words evoke? A soldier? A civil rights activist? You probably wouldn’t picture a slender, lovely woman in her seventies, but Dr. Jill Mabley, the medical director for Cherokee County Fire and Emergency Services, embodies all these traits and more.
Breaks the Glass Ceiling The résumé of Dr. Jill Mabley may seem extraordinary—doctor, firefighter, chief emergency room doctor, deputy emergency medical services medical director of Georgia— but even those jobs don’t mention her most impressive qualifications. Jill not only broke through the glass ceiling, she shattered it. She even redefined what it means to be a first responder. Jill grew up in Chicago and in a small town in rural Wisconsin. The daughter of a legendary journalist with the Chicago Tribune, she says, “My parents taught me that I could do anything I wanted to do. I wanted to test limits.” Such an attitude was unusual for parents in the 1950s, when girls were expected to become wives and mothers, period. Even the women who did get an education were rarely given the tools to succeed and had few career options. Jill attended Cornell University and received a degree in history, for example. Job opportunities for women were thin, and Jill knew she had to make her own future. She moved to Chicago and worked at the Art Institute as a librarian in the children’s section while taking science classes at the University of Illinois. The sciences appealed to her, so she applied for the medical program at Rush University, one of only ten women in the program of 120 students. Upon graduation Mabley specialized in emergency medicine, a fledgling career path for doctors, but Jill notes, “My parents emphasized volunteer work and giving back. It was part of my DNA.” Emergency room doctors got disrespected in the beginning, she recalls. “We were called glorified paramedics.” uuu
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