Balconi enrolled in the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Pavia and was introduced to her future profession while working, during the holidays, with her father who was a physician in a medical clinic nearby.

[1][2] In 1943 she graduated from medical school and went to work with the clinician and pediatrician Pietro Fornara (1897– 1975), a pioneer in the field of child neuropsychiatry as well as a fervent anti-fascist and head of the resistance movement in Novara, Italy.

Balconi served as deputy director of the National Motherhood and Childhood Work (ONMI) from 1945 to 1948 and organized a pilot research effort modeled after the French and Swiss medical-pedagogical centers she had seen.

[1] During her five years in the Italian Parliament, she introduced a total of 22 bills of which five became law, including Act 2185 of 13 March 1965, Protection of mental health and psychiatric assistance.

[1] Although Balconi resigned in 1980 as director of the Child Neuropsychiatry Service of the Novara hospital (Ospedale Maggiore), she remained professionally active until her death on 5 February 1999 at 79 years of age.