Women In Medicine

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Women In Medicine

• Midway College Library Celebrates Womens History
  Month
• March 1-31

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Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell(1821-1910)

• Although born in Britain, Dr. Elizabeth
  Blackwell was the first woman in the United
  States to be awarded the M.D. degree. Although
  she faced many difficulties Dr. Blackwell earned
  her medical degree in 1849. She founded the New
  York Infirmary for Women and Children and in 1868
  she founded a Womens Medical College in New York
  City to train other women physicians. In 1869 she
  returned to Britain and spent the rest of her
  life working to expand medical opportunities for
  women.

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Dr. Marie Elizabeth Zakrzewska(1829-1902)

• Dr. Zakrzewska immigrated from Germany to the
  United States in 1852. Trained as a Midwife she
  was encouraged by Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell to
  pursue her medical degree. She graduated from
  Clevelands Western Reserve University in 1856
  with a degree in medicine. Zakrzewska worked
  with Blackwell at the New York Infirmary for
  Women and Children and in 1862 she opened the New
  England Hospital for Women and Children. In 1872
  the hospital opened the first professional nurse
  training program in the country and provided
  clinical training for female doctors that was
  inaccessible to them at male medical
  establishments.

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Mary Putnam Jacobi(1842-1906)

• Mary Putnam Jacobi was the first female graduate
  of the Ecole de Medecine in Paris, and as a
  physician, the first women to be admitted to the
  New York Academy of Medicine. During her career
  she published nine books and over 120 medical
  articles. One of her last scientific works was a
  detailed clinical account for her own menigeal
  tumor, from which she died in 1906.

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Margaret Sanger(1879-1966)

• Margaret Sanger was a birth control activist,
  nurse and lecturer. She practiced nursing until
  1912 when she left the profession in order to
  devote her time educating women about birth
  control. In 1914 she was arrested for violating
  postal obscenity laws for dispensing information
  on contraceptives through pamphlets such as
  Family Limitation. Sanger fled to England and
  upon her return to the United States in 1916, she
  opened the first birth control clinic in the U.S.
  in Brooklyn New York. She also founded the
  American Birth Control League in 1921 (renamed
  Planned Parenthood in 1942), and lectured on the
  benefits of birth control throughout the world.
  These lectures culminated in the 1930
  organization of the Birth Control International
  Information Centre and the 1952 foundation of the
  International Planned Parenthood Federation

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Clara Barton (1821-1912)

• Clara Barton was an American humanitarian and
  organizer of the American Red Cross. Upon the
  outbreak of the Civil War in 1860 Barton
  established a service of supplies for soldiers
  and nursed in army camps and on the battlefields.
  She became known as the Angel of the
  Battlefield. She was in Europe in 1870 for the
  outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War and went to
  work behind German lines for the International
  Red Cross. She returned to the United States in
  1873 and in 1881 organized the American National
  Red Cross, which she headed until 1904.

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Mary Mahoney(1845-1926)

• Mary Mahoney was the first black professional
  nurse in America. She worked for the acceptance
  of black women in the nursing profession and for
  improvement of the status of the black
  professional nurse. Between the ages of 18 and
  33 Mahoney worked as an untrained nurse. In 1878
  she was accepted as a student nurse at The New
  England Hospital for Women and Children. Upon
  her graduation in 1879 she was employed as a
  private duty nurse. Mahoney was on of the few
  early black members on the ANA and supported the
  organization of the National Association of
  Colored Graduate Nurses, which established an
  award in her honor in 1936.

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Elinor Delight Gregg(1889-1970)

• Elinor Delight Gregg was the first supervisor of
  nurses for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, she
  organized and developed a service and programs
  that greatly improved the health conditions of
  the Indians and the Eskimos. Gregg received her
  nursing degree at the Waltham Training School for
  Nurses. During WWI she joined the Red Cross. In
  1922 through the Red Cross she worked as a public
  health nurse on the Rosebud and Pine Ridge
  reservations in South Dakota. In 1924 she left
  the Red Cross to become the first supervisor of
  Public Health Nursing for the Bureau of Indian
  Affairs. She recruited nurses for service under
  the Bureau for 12 years. Her experiences of
  working on the Indian reservations and her
  supervisory position were recorded in the book
  Indians and the Nurse.

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Dorothea Dix(1802-1887)

• Dorothea Dix spearheaded nationwide reforms in
  the treatment of the mentally disabled. Dixs
  interest in the welfare of mental patients was
  sparked in March 1841, when she visited women
  prisoners in the East Cambridge house of
  correction. After her visit she began surveying
  existing mental institutions in the United States
  and Europe. Dix then set out on an 18-month
  survey of prisons, poorhouses and asylums in
  Massachusetts. She presented her grim findings
  to the State legislature and convinced them to
  approve funds to expand and improve the state
  asylum. In New Jersey Dix oversaw the
  establishment of the states first mental
  hospital. Although she was appointed
  superintendent of army nurses during the Civil
  War (the highest office attained by a woman
  during the Civil War), she will be most
  remembered for her work with the mentally
  disabled.

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Mary Breckenridge(1881-1965)

• Mary Breckenridge introduced the first modern
  rural comprehensive health-care system in the
  United States. She created a decentralized
  system for primary nursing-care services for
  neglected residents of a 1,000 square-mile area
  in southeastern Kentucky. She was also a key
  factor in the growth of nurse midwives in the
  U.S. Earning her nursing degree in 1910,
  Breckenridge spent two years in France organizing
  nursing efforts during WWI. Upon her return to
  the U.S. in 1921 she decided to focus her nursing
  efforts on rural southeastern Kentucky. In 1925
  at Wendover, Kentucky Breckenridge organized the
  Kentucky Committee for Mothers and Babies, which
  in 1928 became the Frontier Nursing Service. The
  center of the FNS was in Hyden, Kentucky, where a
  hospital and health center was developed. In
  1939 a school of midwifery was also formed there.
  Although Breckenridge died in 1965, the FNS
  continues to serve the population of rural
  Kentucky.

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Dr. Irene Roeckel(1924-2006)

• Dr. Irene Roeckel earned her medical degree from
  the University of Heidelberg Medical School in
  1948. She came to the United States in 1952 and
  in the early 1960s joined the faculty of the
  University of Kentucky Medical School. Dr.
  Roeckels accomplishments include devising
  laboratory procedures for understanding kidney
  and liver diseases, glucose and insulin
  tolerance, and carbohydrate metabolism. In 1973
  she became the founding director of the Central
  Kentucky Blood Bank. Dr. Roeckel continued to
  teach at the University of Kentucky. In addition
  to her vast medical activities Dr. Roeckel was
  also an accomplished dressage rider and horse
  enthusiast.

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Dr. Claire Louise Caudill( 1913-1999)

• Dr. Claire Louise Caudill was a family
  practitioner in Morehead, Kentucky for about a
  half-century, delivering an estimated 8,000
  babies in rural Kentucky. She received her
  medical degree from the University of Louisville
  in 1947 and opened her practice in Morehead in
  1948. She spent years traveling the back roads
  of Eastern Kentucky giving medical attention to
  those whose homes often did not have electricity
  or running water. Dr. Caudill was instrumental
  in establishing Moreheads St. Claire Medical
  Center. She helped raise the money and secure
  the staffing for the facility in 1960. The
  hospital was opened in 1963 and Dr. Caudill was
  its first chief of staff from 1963-1972. The
  book Country Doctor The Story of Dr. Claire
  Louise Caudill chronicles her career and
  provides an excellent understanding of what she
  meant and still means to the people of Rowan
  County.

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Sr. Callista Roy(1939- )

• Callista L. Roy, RN, PhD is a Professor and
  Nurse Theorist at the William F. Connell School
  of Nursing at Boston College. She is best know
  for her work on the Roy adaptation model of
  nursing. Her other scholarly work includes
  conceptualizing and measuring coping and
  developing the philosophical basis for the
  adaptation model and for the epistemology of
  nursing. Dr. Roy holds masters degrees in
  pediatric nursing and sociology as well as a PhD
  from UCLA. She also holds honorary doctorates
  from four other institutions.

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WANT TO LEARN MORE?

• Look for the book display located to the left of
  the stairs and feel free to take a bibliography.