Sunday, March 7, 2010

First Women To Become A Doctor: Elizabeth Blackwell

“If society will not admit of woman's free development, then society must be remodelled” –Elizabeth Blackwell

Elizabeth Blackwell was the first women to graduate from medical school, in the modern era. She was born on Feb 3/1821 in England, and died on May 31/1910.

Her family moved to the United States and Elizabeth worked as a teacher to help pay for her medical school fees. After she worked in Kentucky she moved over to North and South Carolina and New York where she studied medicine.

It wasn’t easy for her to become a doctor, there were lots of challenges on the way. When Elizabeth applied to different schools most of them rejected her, except for one. A school in New York thought that Elizabeth was pulling a practical joke... so they accepted her. When Liz showed up at the new school all the teachers found out that she was actually serious. During the first few weeks Elizabeth wasn’t allowed to enter the medical classrooms because she was a woman, but she showed them that she was determined to become a doctor.

In 1849 Elizabeth Blackwell graduated and that’s when she became the first women ever to graduate from medical school in the modern era. That wasn’t it though; she still had a big challenge ahead of her, Elizabeth wanted to become a surgeon but she got an eye infection and became blind in one eye. So she never became a surgeon. Elizabeth looked for hospital jobs in New York but they rejected her, so she went back to London and bought a house so people could come for checkups in her house.

Elizabeth over her whole life had accomplished a lot. She wrote a book called “The Laws of Life; with Special Reference to the Physical Education of Girls.” Liz also wrote lots of other books as well. Elizabeth helped and encouraged other women to become doctors or nurses. So Elizabeth stayed in England and helped to organize the National Health Society and she also founded the London School of Medical for Women.

“For what is done or learned by one class of women becomes, by virtue of their common womanhood, the property of all women.” – Elizabeth Blackwell


Sources:

http://womenshistory.about.com/od/blackwellelizabeth/a/eliz_blackwell.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Blackwell

http://thinkexist.com/quotation/if-society-will-not-admit-of-woman-s-free/397859.html


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