She was also the first woman to be appointed head of an academic department of surgery at a coeducational school of medicine (Ohio State University) and the first woman to be appointed chief of surgery of a major medical center.
After her residency, Jonasson spent a year at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Washington D.C. where she had a postdoctoral Fellowship under Dr. Elmer Becker[1] in which she studied immunohistochemistry.
[2] She then had another year long research and clinical fellowship under at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston where she studied transplantation immunobiology[2] under Dr. Henry J. Winn and Dr. Paul S.
In 1987, she left Cook County Hospital when she was named Robert M. Zollinger Professor of Surgery at the Ohio State University.
During this dinner chief residents would be welcomed into her home and given the opportunity to speak with leading experts in the medical field.
Olga Jonasson died at Northwestern Memorial Hospital of T-cell lymphoma, on August 30, 2006.