Women in STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) have never received the same level of recognition and praise that their male counterparts have received, either lost in the history books or deliberately concealed. Although this is changing, and there are more opportunities in STEM for women today, the representation is still unequal between men and women (and I have yet to come across data that represents trans and nonbinary folks in STEM). Medicine is one of the many areas within STEM where women haven’t had the same opportunities as men, which is why we are looking specifically at the women doctors who have made history.
Here you will find ten women doctors from the history books. You can also visit part one and part two to see the phenomenal women we have featured so far.
Tan Yunxian (1461-1554)
Tan Yunxian was a physician who lived in Ming Dynasty China. Girls did not receive formal career training or go into careers, but it wouldn’t be unusual for a girl to receive family training to act essentially as an assistant in their family’s field of work. In Tan Yunxian’s case, her grandmother was the daughter of a doctor, and her grandmother’s husband married her to learn more about medicine, and her doting grandparents ended up teaching her everything they knew about medicine. Her care was initially of her own children, but spread to the women of the community, and included herbal medicines, moxibustion, and gynecology. Tan Yunxian even wrote a book featuring thirty-one case records of patients she treated (although she was unable to publish it herself because of sexism). It can be difficult to find English-language sources on her, but you can read more about her in articles like this one.
Mary Edwards Walker (1832-1919)
Mary Edwards Walker was a US-American medical doctor who served as a surgeon for the Union Army during the American Civil War. She grew up well-educated, and after earning money for college by teaching, she earned her medical degree at Syracuse Medical College. Mary Edwards Walker opened her own practice with her husband, also a doctor, although her marriage ended due to her husband’s infidelity. She was dedicated to reforming women’s clothes, which were an absolute hindrance, and she was known for experimenting with dress style and length and especially for dressing in men’s clothing, which she was arrested for many times. When the Civil War broke out, she became the first woman surgeon of the Union Army and was a champion of women soldiers. While assisting a Confederate surgeon with an amputation, she was arrested as a spy by the Confederates and held as a prisoner of war, and she was later traded for a Confederate surgeon. After the war, she was awarded the Medal of Honor, still the only woman in American history to receive the honour. She received a disability pension from the military because of injuries suffered as a POW, and she went on to be a writer, lecturer, and activist. You can read her obituary in the Times here. You can read some of the writings from her essay collection on women’s rights (titled Hit) here. For younger readers, there is the picture book, Mary Wears What She Wants by Keith Negley.
Rebecca Cole (1846-1922)
Rebecca Cole was a US-American and one of the very first Black women to practice medicine in the USA. She grew up in Pennsylvania and received a good education in her childhood, and went on to be the first Black woman to get her medical degree from the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1867, only the second Black woman to earn a medical degree in the USA (the first being Rebecca Lee Crumpler, featured in part one of this series). After she earned her medical degree, Cole began working at the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children (founded by Elizabeth Blackwell, also featured in part one of this series), where she visited tenements to teach women about prenatal care and hygiene. Cole cared deeply about the poor and it was a common thing in her life for her to make house calls in the slums. She also practiced medicine in South Carolina and Pennsylvania. In 1899, she was appointed the superintendent of the Association for the Relief of Destitute Colored Women and Children in DC. Rebecca Cole was a trailblazer who practiced medicine for over fifty years, but very few records of her life and career survive to this day. You can read more about Cole in this article.
Aletta Jacobs (1854-1929)
Aletta Jacobs (pictured above) was a Dutch doctor and activist. One of eleven children in a Jewish family, she was the daughter of a doctor and developed an interest in medicine at a young age. Education for girls was often limited to finishing school (which she found to be a waste of her time after only weeks of attendance), so she studied languages at home with her parents. With studying help from her doctor father, pharmacist brother, and a family friend who was a hygienist, she studied for medical school, and she became the first woman in the Netherlands to attend a university in an official capacity. After studying brain physiology for her thesis, Jacobs became the first Dutch woman to receive a medical degree and the first to earn a medical doctorate. Jacobs studied with many other doctors and reformers from around the world at the time, and especially worked in poor communities, and she came to realise that sexually transmitted diseases and repeated pregnancies were having a devastating impact on maternal health and the infant mortality rate. She became a huge proponent of contraception and performed clinical trials with the diaphragm, helping to popularise its use. Beyond her medical career, Jacobs was a major advocate and activist for birth control and women’s suffrage. You can read a little about her birth control activism in this essay.
Matilde Montoya (1859-1939)
Matilde Montoya was the first woman to become a physician in Mexico. Born in Mexico City, Montoya was encouraged in her studies by her parents, and especially by her mother. She was only twelve years old when she finished school, and she was too young to attend university, but she continued to study at home thanks to her mother’s encouragement. Montoya initially studied midwifery and obstetrics before entering medical school, where she earned her doctorate in 1887, becoming one of the earliest known women doctors in Mexico. She was best known for her work in obstetrics, gynecology, pediatrics, and surgery. Although Montoya faced much prejudice as a woman in medicine, the president of Mexico supported her, granted her a scholarship, and supported the idea of higher education, especially in medicine, for middle- and upper-class women (with nothing said of the same education for poor women that I am aware of). Montoya worked with other women doctors of the day, and she was active in feminist groups at the time. You can read more about Matilde Montoya through the Google Doodle to honour her 160th birthday.
Kei Okami (1859-1941)
Kei Okami was a Japanese physician, and she was the first Japanese woman to earn a degree in western medicine from a western university. As a young woman, Okami taught English at a girls’ school and married an art teacher. After they moved from Japan to the USA, Okami received aid from a missionary group to attend medical school in Pennsylvania. She graduated from medical school in 1889, in the same graduating class as Susan La Flesche Picotte (featured in part two of this series). When Okami returned to Japan, she worked at Jikei Hospital for a time, until she resigned because the emperor refused her care due to her gender. Okami worked as a vice principal for a girls’ school until 1897 when she opened a small women’s hospital. She treated sick women there and ran a nursing school at the location until the hospital closed due to lack of patients. She eventually retired due to her own breast cancer. You can read more about her, along with Dr. Anandi Gopal Joshi and Dr. Tabat M. Islambooly, from the article The Graduates.
Janet Elizabeth Lane-Claypon, Lady Forber (1877-1967)
Janet Lane-Claypon was an English physician and she is considered a pioneer in the field of epidemiology. Lane-Claypon was born into an upper-class family and was privately educated. She attended the London School of Medicine for Women, and she earned both a medical degree and a doctorate of science. The British Medical Society gave her a scholarship, the first one they ever awarded to a woman. Lane-Claypon’s early work focused on the structure of the ovary. When she shifted to epidemiological studies, she was a pioneer when it came to cohort studies and case-control studies. One of her studies included the impact on child health of breastfeeding. One of Lane-Claypon’s most important studies was on breast cancer, which led to some of the early information we had on risks and on life expectancy with treatment. Throughout her career, she published three books and thirty scientific papers. She published one paper after her marriage to Sir Edward Rodolph Forber, who was Deputy Secretary of the Ministry of Health, but she retired from medicine for the most part after her marriage, as would have been expected of her at the time. You can read more about her in her obituary in the British Medical Journal here (second page), or you can read this passage about her in The Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science: Pioneering Lives From Ancient Times to the Mid-20th Century by Marilyn Ogilvie and Joy Harvey.
Edma Abouchdid (1909-1992)
Edma Abouchdid was a Lebanese obstetrician/gynecologist, and she was the first woman to become a doctor in Lebanon. Knowing from a young age that she wanted to be a doctor, despite this being frowned upon by society, she lied about her age to gain entry to the American University of Beirut, which had just begun to admit women. She graduated from medical school in 1931 and remained the only woman medical student or graduate at the school for several years. Abouchdid wanted to specialise as an OB/GYN, but he had serious concerns that it would lead people to discredit her and believe her to be a midwife rather than a physician. She gained substantial further training abroad, including in Iraq, France, England, and the USA. When she returned to Lebanon, her new skills led to her offering services as an infertility specialist, and she became a renowned expert in the field, even treating a number of Middle Eastern royal families. Abouchdid started an organisation for women doctors in Lebanon, and she founded the Family Planning Association of Lebanon. She was an advocate for contraception when it was illegal (with a possible jail sentence) to advocate for contraception in Lebanon. To learn more about the life and works of Edma Abouchdid, you can read this article, and you can read this passage about her in Women in Medicine: An Encyclopedia by Laura Lynn Windsor.
Elizabeth Abimbola Awoliyi (1910-1971)
Elizabeth Abimbola Awoliyi was a Nigerian physician, the first woman to practice as a physician in Nigeria, and the second West African woman to earn a degree in western medicine (the first was Agnes Yewande Savage, featured in part two of this series). Awoliyi attended primary school in Lagos, as well as Queen’s College there, and later went to the University of Dublin, where she graduated with honours and became the first West African woman in Dublin to earn a license of Royal Surgeon. When she returned to Nigeria, Awoliyi worked as a gynecologist and junior medical officer at a hospital, where she moved up the ranks to chief consultant and Medical Director. She was the first president of the National Council of Women Societies, and she served as a consultant for the group’s family planning organisation. As the first woman to practice western medicine in Nigeria, she made a powerful advocate for the empowerment of women. Awoliyi received numerous awards for her work, including Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE), Nigerian National Honor – Officer of the Order of the Federal Republic (OFR), Iya Abiye of Lagos, and Iyalaje of Oyo Empire. You can read a little more about Elizabeth Abimbola Awoliyi in this article.
Barbara Ball (1924-2011)
Barbara Ball was a Bermudian physician, and she the first woman to practice western medicine in Bermuda. Ball attended primary and high school in Bermuda, but she went to medical school in Bermuda. While Ball lived in England, she practiced medicine there for several years before returning to work in Bermuda at an already existing practice. In the 1940s and 1950s, Ball treated patients who were both Black and white, which was an unusual (and unpopular) choice at the time for a white woman. Ball had also trained in Judo while she was in school, and when she started practicing medicine in Bermuda, she also taught Judo after hours and ended up running one of the first integrated sports centres in Bermuda. From her position as a white medical professional, she advocated for Black Bermudians to gain voting rights, joined the Bermuda Industrial Union to help working-class Black folks to have better working conditions and pay, and spoke to the UN about racism in Bermuda. Ball participated in a strike with the labourers at the Bermuda Electrical Light Company, where she used her Judo skills to fight back against police. She was even charged (and acquitted) with inciting a riot during this strike. Ball often ran into issues where white communities, hospitals, and patients would shun her for being a “race traitor.” You can read more about Barbara Ball in articles such as this one or this one.
Previously, The Feminist Bibliothecary has offered up information about women in physics, and you can find the links to those articles here:
Women in Physics: Introduction
Women in Physics: History, Part One
The Feminist Bibliothecary 