She spread her vast knowledge through training and lectures around the country. But her focus always remained on the care of her patients. <\/p>\n
\u201cI didn\u2019t feel women were getting as much health care as they needed in those early days,\u201d Tedeschi said. \u201cThey weren\u2019t getting personalized care, and every woman deserves that.\u201d <\/p>\n
Her retirement in July was greeted with praise but also tears from her patients and colleagues. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis place looked like a florist shop,\u201d her husband, Tony Tedeschi, a travel and business writer, said laughing, while standing in the couple\u2019s living room. <\/p>\n
Cheryl Roth is a longtime patient who also served with Tedeschi on the board of DES Action USA, an organization for people who were exposed to DES. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a big loss for us and a big loss for the DES community, but I\u2019m happy for her because she has worked so hard,\u201d said Roth, who lives part of the year in Locust Valley. <\/p>\n
Roth noted that many young women, including her own daughter, were referred to Tedeschi because of her warm manner as well as her experience. <\/p>\n
\u201cGoing to the gynecologist at any age is not the most comfortable thing,\u201d Roth said. \u201cCandy made it easy.\u201d <\/p>\n
A DREAM ON HOLD <\/p>\n
A 4-year-old Candy Tedeschi wearing a nurse\u2019s cape. Credit: Candy Tedeschi<\/p>\n
Candice Tedeschi is quick to tell a reporter she never uses her surname. \u201cEveryone knows me as Candy,\u201d she said. <\/p>\n
She lived in Illinois until seventh grade, then moved to Southern California. After graduation from high school, she returned to Illinois for nursing school, until her plans were derailed by a chance encounter. <\/p>\n
\u201cI went to an ice cream social and met this guy,\u201d she joked, pointing to Tony, who was an Air Force lieutenant at the time. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe met and we fell in love,\u201d Candy Tedeschi said. \u201cHe was being transferred to New Mexico. So we got married and moved to New Mexico.\u201d <\/p>\n
She quit nursing school and put that dream on hold. She and Tony married in 1964 and in the following years their two daughters, Lisa and Annie, were born. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe nearest nursing school in New Mexico was 100 miles away, so it wasn\u2019t something I could do,\u201d she recalled. But she was determined to return to school one day. <\/p>\n
In 1968, her husband was honorably discharged from the Air Force and they moved to Queens and then later years to Long Island. Tedeschi decided once Tony was settled in a new job, she would return to nursing school. <\/p>\n
Tony recalled coming home one day and finding his wife in tears, talking about how much she wanted to continue her nursing studies. <\/p>\n
Now her biggest booster, Tony admitted he was concerned at the time about who would watch their small children. <\/p>\n
\u201cShe said, \u2018We\u2019ll figure it out \u2014 I have to do this,\u2019 \u201c he said, adding, \u201cI\u2019m proud of her forever.\u201d <\/p>\n
DES DAUGHTERS<\/p>\n
Candy graduated from Mount Sinai\u2019s nursing program at City College of New York and by 1975 was working in the neonatal unit of Long Island Jewish Hospital in New Hyde Park, now known as Long Island Jewish Medical Center. <\/p>\n
Five years later, she was looking for a new challenge and found one in a six-month job helping screen women whose mothers had taken diethylstilbestrol when they were pregnant. <\/p>\n
What began as a temporary job, funded by a grant, turned into lifelong work with patients known as \u201cDES daughters\u201d and the start of an important collaboration with Dr. Burton Krumholz. <\/p>\n
Krumholz helped oversee the department of obstetrics and gynecology at LIJ and was renowned for his expertise in health conditions stemming from abnormal Pap test results, the use of a colposcope (a kind of microscope) to look for cancerous cells on the cervix, and the impact of DES, which is a synthetic form of the hormone estrogen<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cDES was given to pregnant women from the 1940s until 1971,\u201d said Candy Tedeschi. \u201cDoctors would give it to women who had a threat of miscarriage or bleeding, and sometimes they gave it to women to make a normal pregnancy more \u2018normal.\u2019 \u201d <\/p>\n Years later, doctors discovered the daughters of women who took DES were getting rare forms of cervical or vaginal cancer<\/a>, she said. <\/p>\n DES daughters have \u201cabout 40 times the risk of developing clear cell adenocarcinoma of the lower genital tract as unexposed women (women who were not exposed prenatally)\u201d\u00a0according to the National Cancer Institute.<\/a><\/p>\n Even though it is still considered rare, some of the women were young when they were diagnosed and the risk goes up as they get older. <\/p>\n These women are also more likely to have cervical precancers. <\/p>\n A MENTOR\u2019S NUDGE<\/p>\n Krumholz received a grant in 1979 to screen women from Nassau, Suffolk and Queens at LIJ and Nassau County Medical Center, now known as Nassau University Medical Center. <\/p>\n Tedeschi immersed herself in the topic, reading about how drug manufacturers did not have to prove their products were safe and effective until the 1962 amendments to the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act. DES had been given to millions of women without scientific studies to prove it was safe. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not like today,\u201d she said. \u201cThere were no double-blind studies.\u201d <\/p>\n Even more troubling, some pregnant women were unknowingly part of a DES clinical trial in the 1950s, <\/a>when they were given the drug or a placebo. Even though more of the DES mothers had miscarriages and small babies, the drug remained in use until 1971. <\/p>\n \u201cI was fascinated,\u201d Tedeschi said. \u201cI kept asking questions and asking questions.\u201d <\/p>\n One day, Krumholz good-naturedly told her that she was getting to be a pain with all her questions and suggested she go back to school and become a nurse practitioner. <\/p>\n She did. <\/p>\n \u2018WHY AM I SEEING AN NP?\u2019 <\/p>\n A 1989 Newsday story focuses on Tedeschi, one of LI\u2019s first nurse practitioners. Credit: Debbie Egan-Chin<\/p>\n Through a one-year joint program between SUNY Downstate and Planned Parenthood, Tedeschi trained to be a nurse practitioner. She graduated from the program in 1984. <\/p>\n The scope of nurse practitioners\u2019 work broadened over the years with a major legislative change in New York that went into effect in 1989 allowing them to order medical tests and write prescriptions. <\/p>\n