Cathy Yarbrough’s keen interest in science began not in the classroom, but in the newsroom of The Atlanta Constitution. While conducting interviews for a feature article about the social services needed by mentally retarded mothers with young children, she asked a social worker about the women’s contraceptive method. The social worked referred to the “birth control shot.”
Cathy’s report about the clinical trial on the experimental contraceptive was her first page 1 byline — and her first medical article. Because the newspaper’s editors did not share her newly discovered fascination with medicine and science, Cathy eventually gave up her reporting job for a series of staff public relations/communications positions in biomedical research, first in Atlanta (Emory University), then Dallas (American Heart Association national office), Bethesda (Human Genome Project/NIH), Morristown (Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Inc.), New York City (Rockefeller University) and San Diego (Salk Institute for Biological Studies followed by freelance/consulting work), where she currently is based.
