An active member of the Red Cross from a young age, Gruden graduated from the University of Belgrade Faculty of Medicine in 1966, completed her specialization in 1976, and became primarius in 1984.
Gruden has said that one of her most important accomplishments in office was arranging for Serb refugee children from Croatia and Bosnia and Hercegovina to continue their education in Athens, Greece.
[7] Gruden later contended that she lost the support of both Milošević and Marković after persuading Vuk Drašković, the leader of the opposition Serbian Renewal Movement (Srpski pokrat obnove, SPO) party, to end a hunger strike in 1993.
[8] After leaving political office, Gruden returned to working as a doctor; during the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, she was deputy director and head of the blood transfusion service at Zemun's central clinic.
[9] Following Milošević's defeat in the 2000 Yugoslavian presidential election, she was part of a group of SPS members that called on him to resign as leader and for the party to return to its core values.