Dr. Cynthia Ayers, a trailblazing Pittsburgh physician who broke down barriers of race and gender in the medical profession and in 2007 became the first woman to receive the Physician of the Year Award from Gateway Medical Society, died Wednesday. She was 67.

Dr. Ayers withdrew from her practice at Forbes Internal Medicine after suffering a stroke in May. She died at West Penn Hospital with family members at her bedside.

"I am certain when God surveys all that he's made, he looks at my mother's life and calls it an exceptional creation," said her daughter, Kimberly Ayers Shariff of New York City.

In addition to her private practice at 221 Penn Ave., Dr. Ayers was medical director at LifeCare Hospital in Wilkinsburg and had administrative duties at Forbes Regional Hospital in Monroeville and West Penn Hospital in Bloomfield.

She also was a regular public speaker at community events and an active member of Mount Ararat Baptist Church in East Liberty.

As a colon cancer survivor, she empathized with her patients.

"She would go out of her way to help her patients," said Renee Reynolds, her office manager for 10 years. "If they needed to talk to her for an hour, she would sit there and listen.

"Even if she had a patient she knew she was going to lose, she would stay there with them and the family until they ceased to breathe. She was deeply loved. It's a great loss to everybody."

A native of Philadelphia, Dr. Ayers knew as a young girl that being a physician was exactly what she wanted to do. Her mother, a nurse, encouraged that dream and even placed a small tape player under Dr. Ayers' pillow each night that played her mother's words of reassurance that the dream was attainable.

After graduating from Howard University with a bachelor's degree in chemistry and Howard University College of Medicine, she married her late husband, Robert Ayers. During her postgraduate training, she laid the foundation for other African-Americans and women who followed her by convincing the administration at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania that a married woman deserved the same supplemental salary as a married man.

"My mother has a single focus when it comes to things she cared about," Mrs. Shariff said.

Dr. Ayers was a fan of college basketball and made regular trips to New York for the Big East tournaments. Tennis was another passion of hers, and two years ago she fulfilled a lifelong dream of attending the Wimbledon tournament.

Toward the end of her life, however, nothing was more important than family.

"She spoke to her children every day and was a great grandmother," Ms. Reynolds said. "She would call her grandchildren every night before they went to bed. Even if we had patients here, she would pause in the middle of everything and tell them she had to call her grandchildren before they went to bed."

In addition to Mrs. Shariff, Dr. Ayers is survived by a son, Byron Ayers of Silver Springs, Md., and two granddaughters. Funeral arrangements are by House of Law in Penn Hills.

A viewing will be held between 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. today at Mount Ararat Baptist Church. Funeral services will take place at 11 a.m. tomorrow at the church, followed by interment at Homewood Cemetery. Donations may be sent to a scholarship being established in Dr. Ayers' memory at Howard University Medical School.

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