The ISSVD is grateful to the four authors of this invaluable resource and for their selfless donation to make this available to everyone.
We are also indebted to Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates (HVMA) and Atrius Health Foundation for their willingness to support these authors and the Vulvovaginal Service since 1992.
These four authors, without much in the way of evidence in the literature, learned what they could, apprenticing with those who knew more than they did, each becoming committed to not giving up on the women who had shuttled from clinician to clinician trying to find answers and relief.
In 1998, Dr. Margesson co-authored her book Genital Dermatology (it became the Atlas in the website). In 2002, Dr. Stewart published her landmark book, The V Book, a doctor’s guide to complete vulvovaginal health, written for women, but even now a “closet resource” for women’s health clinicians throughout the world.

Elizabeth Gunther Stewart, M.D., FACOG

Elizabeth Gunther Stewart, M.D., FACOG, is co-founder and Director Emerita of the Vulvovaginal Service at Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates in Boston. Dr. Stewart is also Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at Harvard Medical School and a member of the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center staff. She is a Fellow of the International Society for the Study of Vulvovaginal Disease and of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. She is on the Board of Directors for the National Vulvodynia Association.
Dr. Stewart graduated from the George Washington University School of Medicine in 1981 and completed a residency in Obstetrics and Gynecology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in 1985.
She is the author of The V Book, A Doctor’s Guide to Complete Vulvovaginal Health, and was the co-investigator in the National Institutes of Health funded first epidemiological study of vulvovaginal pain. The study findings (Harlow BL, Stewart EG. A population-based assessment of chronic unexplained vulvar pain: have we underestimated the prevalence of vulvodynia? JAMWA 2003; 58:82-88) showed that vulvovaginal pain of more than three months duration is found in 16% of ethnically diverse women.

Ione Bissonnette, CNM, MSN

Ione Bissonnette, CNM, MSN, met Dr Elizabeth G. Stewart and Diana Parks-Forbes, NP, while practicing as a full-scope nurse-midwife at Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in 1995. Impressed by their ability to diagnose and treat women with vulvovaginal complaints, she became an apprentice to Dr Stewart over the course of a year and then attended the ISSVD (International Society for the Study of Vulvovaginal Disease) postgraduate course in Salvador, Brazil in 2003. While continuing her midwifery practice, she joined the Vulvovaginal Service at Harvard Vanguard in 2004.
In 2005, she became the first Advanced Practice Clinician Fellow of the ISSVD. She is a member of the National Vulvodynia Association and the American College of Nurse Midwives, as well as the ISSVD.
Ione graduated from Columbia University in 1975 with a BS in Nursing and received a Master’s Degree in Midwifery from the University of Pennsylvania in 1987.

Lynette J. Margesson, MD

Lynette J. Margesson, MD, practiced with her dermatologist husband in a private dermatology practice in Manchester, New Hampshire until her semi-retirement in 2017. She continues to work on a monthly basis with gynecologist Dr Debra Birenbaum in a vulvar clinic at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center, seeing patients and teaching residents in Dermatology and Gynecology. She has been with Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates since 1998, consulting on complex vulvovaginal cases with Dr. Elizabeth Stewart and Dr. Cynthia Rasmussen.
She received her medical degree from the University of Western Ontario, Canada in 1970, and completed her dermatology training at the University of Toronto in 1975, at which time she received her specialty certificate as a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Canada (FRCPC).
She became a Diplomate of the American Academy of Dermatology in 1976 and is Assistant Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology, and Surgery (Dermatology) at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire.
She is the co-author of two textbooks on vulvar disease, Genital Dermatology, written with Benjamin Fisher, MD in 1998, and Obstetric and Gynecologic Dermatology, written with Martin M Black and Marilynne McKay, et al in 2002. She is an active member of the International Society for the Study of Vulvar Disease (ISSVD) and lectures on vulvar disease nationally and internationally. Most of the material in the Atlas of Vulvar Disorders in this website was contributed by Dr Margesson.

Diana Parks Forbes, NP

Diana Parks Forbes, NP, was the co-founder of the Vulvovaginal Service in 1992, and has been helping women with vulvovaginal disease for over 25 years.
She obtained a nursing diploma in 1968, then a BSN at Northern Illinois University 1970. She became a certified nurse practitioner in adult care 1976 at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and obtained a MSN from Boston University in 1977. She worked in private practice, and then joined Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates in 1980. She became certified in Women’s Health in 1981.
In the Harvard Vanguard practice, she developed expertise in human sexuality and vulvar disease in children. She has lectured on both those subjects, as well as other topics in vulvovaginal diagnosis and treatment. She now lives in Western Massachusetts and works in a private gynecology practice nearby.