Mary Catherine Raugust Howell, Radcliffe '54, JD '91, a leader in the women's health movement and the first woman to become an associate dean at Harvard Medical School, died Feb. 5 of breast cancer at her home in Watertown. She was 65.

Howell played a role in organizing the first national women's health conference at the University and was a founding member of the National Women's Health Network, started in 1976 to lobby for improvement in women's health care. She was also a pioneer in supporting equality for women in health professions.

In 1973, under the pseudonym Margaret A. Campbell, she wrote Why Would a Girl Go into Medicine? Medical Education in the United States: A Guide for Women. The book, which Campbell admitted to penning years later, was packed with facts cited by women crusading for equality in the medical field. Federal legislation eventually banned discrimination against women.

Personal experience sparked Howell's advocacy for women in medicine and improvement in women's health care.

After earning a master's and doctorate in psychology at the University of Minnesota, she decided to become a pediatrician and applied to Minnesota's medical school. During her interview, admissions officers told her that it would be a waste of taxpayer's money to admit her since she would only get married and drop out of the profession.

Undiscouraged, Howell earned her M.D. from Minnesota in 1962, and she stayed on as an instructor there for seven years.

In 1969, she joined the faculty of Harvard Medical School as an instructor in pediatrics, rising to become an assistant professor of pediatrics and chief of the behavior unit in the Children's Service of the Massachusetts General Hospital.

Howell was appointed associate dean for student affairs in 1972, becoming the highest-ranking woman at the medical school at the time.

After leaving Harvard in 1975, she started a pediatric practice in York, Maine, which inspired her to write another book, Healing at Home: A Guide to Health Care for Children. After a year, she returned to the Boston area to practice pediatrics and psychotherapy.

She later returned to Harvard to study law, earning her a degree in 1991. From 1992 to 1994, she was a member of the Division of Medical Ethics at the Medical School.

Howell was a columnist for Working Mother and contributed to Our Bodies, Ourselves: A Book by and for Women.

She is survived by two daughters, Sarah Howell of Framingham and Eve Howell of Boston; five sons, Nicholas Jordan of Weston, Conn., Samuel Howell of Manhattan, Aaron Howell of Medford, Eli Howell of Eugene, Ore., and Ned Raugust of Concord, Mass; and a brother, Tony Raugust of Minneapolis.

A memorial service will be held at 2:30 p.m. on Sunday, March 8, in Christ Church, Cambridge.