In honor of Women’s History Month, this blog is dedicated to notable women who have made significant contributions to the health care field, as well as women who paved the way in their professions.
Mary Seacole (1805 – 1881)
Mary Seacole was a Jamaican woman who started taking an interest in nursing when she was 12, helping her mother run a boarding house that housed sick and injured soldiers. During the Crimean War, she requested to join Florence Nightingale to help treat wounded soldiers but was turned down. In lieu of that, she went to Crimea to bring medical supplies and opened a hotel near the battlefields, which was designed for soldiers to rest and eat a hot meal. The money earned would go right back to treating and helping sick and wounded soldiers. Soldiers lauded her work, and she earned many medals for her bravery.
Elizabeth Blackwell, MD (1821-1910)
Elizabeth Blackwell attended Geneva Medical College and graduated in 1849. In doing so, she became the first woman in the US to earn a medical degree. She was denied from over 10 medical schools and rejected a professor’s suggestion to disguise herself as male to gain admittance. She struggled to find work after her graduation but then in 1857, she co-founded the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children. She eventually went on to become a professor of gynecology and publish several books with the hope of inspiring more women to enter the health care field.
Rebecca Lee Crumpler, MD (1831-1895)
Rebecca Lee Crumpler was the first African American woman in the US to earn a medical degree. She attended the New England Female Medical College in Boston, Massachusetts and is the only Black graduate in the school’s history. She treated formerly enslaved people after the Civil War, working with other Black physicians, while experiencing rampant racism due to being in the postwar South. She published a book in 1883, offering medical advice to women and children.
Susan LaFlesche Picotte, MD (1865-1915)
Susan LaFlesche Picotte was the first Native American woman in the US to earn a medical degree, graduating from the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1889. She credits her inspiration to become a physician to watching a sick Native woman die because a local white doctor refused to provide her care. After graduating, she returned home to provide health care to the Omaha people and was responsible for around 1,300 patients. Before her death, she opened a hospital in the remote reservation town of Waterhill, Nebraska.
Margaret Sanger (1879-1966)
Margaret Sanger pioneered the pill form of birth control and spent her life trying to legalize birth control and make it widely accessible for women. After watching her mother die from the strain of eleven births and seven miscarriages, she devoted her life to finding a contraceptive that relieves women from unwanted and repeated pregnancies. She coined the term “birth control” in 1914 and in 1921 she founded the American Birth Control League, which is the organization that pre-dated Planned Parenthood. In 1960, her work with Gregory Pincus and Katharine McCormick led to the FDA approval of Enovid, which was the first oral contraceptive.
Virginia Apgar, MD (1909-1974)
Virginia Apgar graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons at Columbia University in 1933, where she pursued anesthesiology, eventually becoming the first director of the university’s division of anesthesia in 1938. She is the founder of the Apgar score, the gold standard for determining a newborn’s health. Before this score was devised, doctors had little guidance when assessing infants in their first hours of life. Beyond that, she also was vice president for medical affairs at the March of Dimes, where she brought the public’s attention to issues such as how to prevent birth defects.
Joycelyn Elders, MD (1933-present)
Joycelyn Elders became the first African American surgeon general in 1993 and the second woman to hold the position. After attending the University of Arkansas Medical School as the only woman in her class, she then went on to become the first board-certified pediatric endocrinologist in the state. After being surgeon general for just a year, she then became a faculty researcher and professor at Arkansas Children’s Hospital and spent her years advocating for those who have limited access to health care.
Antonia Novello, MD (1944-present)
Antonia Novello became not only the first woman surgeon general, but also the first Hispanic surgeon general. She grew up in Puerto Rico and her congenital digestive condition is what motivated her to pursue medicine. She went the public health route, working for the National Institutes of Health before becoming surgeon general in 1990. While in that role, she focused on protecting youth and addressing underage smoking and drinking.
Kane, P. (2021, September 27). Mary Seacole facts for kids. National Geographic Kids. https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/discover/history/general-history/mary-seacole/
Public Broadcasting Service. (n.d.). Margaret Sanger (1879-1966). PBS. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/pill-margaret-sanger-1879-1966/
Weiner, S. (2020, March 3). Celebrating 10 women medical pioneers. AAMC. https://www.aamc.org/news/celebrating-10-women-medical-pioneers
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