Elizabeth Blackwell: First Female to Receive an M.D in America

A well known female pioneer who has left a great impact on medicine and science, Elizabeth Blackwell, had a strong passion for women’s rights and became the first-ever female doctor in the United States. She was born in Bristol, England on February 3rd, 1821, and later moved to the U.S when she was 11 for her father’s passion to abolish slavery and for financial purposes. Blackwell’s passion for medicine ensued after one of her close dying friends had informed her that she felt as if she would have had a more successful outcome if she had a female doctor. The death of her friend is what ultimately motivated her to become a physician and in fact, wasn’t an interest in medicine or science that pushed her to earn her M.D. While she did have a strong drive, there were only a few medical colleges and none accepted women, making her goal a lot harder to accomplish. With no clue on how she could become a physician, she sought help from other physicians known by her family and learned from them. Blackwell was aware of what challenges she was facing entering a field not open to women at the time but surely enjoyed the challenge. She continued working with the physician family friends and studied medicine with them for around a year and then applied to all colleges for medicine in Pennsylvania and New York.

Though Elizabeth Blackwell applied to many colleges, she was only accepted to Geneva Medical College in 1847. The all-male student body on campus had thought that Blackwell’s admission to the college was a prank and all voted for her to come, thinking it was a joke; most other students and faculty members didn’t want Elizabeth to be on the campus. People were in disbelief of the idea of a female aiming to get an M.D and it was quite clear that she would be treated poorly. Blackwell had gone through many obstacles in college due to the obvious male-dominance and experienced exclusion and unfair treatment. Sooner or later, she was able to gain the respect of the faculty members and her former unaccepting classmates and graduated first in her class in 1849.

Life after college for Blackwell was not easy either as discrimination against females in this field was still inevitably present. One of her main and differing points she emphasized throughout her career was the importance of preventative care and personal hygiene which became one of her main passions. Unfortunately, when Blackwell went back to Europe after she graduated to work on midwifery, she contracted a disease that made one of her eyes blind, meaning she could no longer practice surgery as she had hoped to. When she returned to New York, she established a clinic called the New York Dispensary for Poor Women and Children in 1853 after previous job requests had been refused. Later in 1857, with the help of her surgeon sister, Emily Blackwell, and physician Marie Zakrzewska, she was also able to establish the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children. As a result, she soon became the first woman on the British Medical Register. Continuing her passion for well kept sanitary conditions, starting to have more importance due to the war, she assisted in the creation of the U.S Sanitary Commission in 1861. With great importance, around the end of 1868, Blackwell had opened a medical school for women which had very competitive and put together material. Leaving her sister in charge of the college, she returned to London in 1875 where she was a professor of gynecology. She published several books, one being an autobiography named Pioneer Work in Opening the Medical Profession to Women in 1895.

Elizabeth Blackwell had accomplished much being a woman who had goals of being a surgeon in the 1800s and faced many obstacles and challenges along her way. She dealt with challenges head-on and opened up many opportunities for women and helped make the medical field more open to women. Blackwell was the first to start breaking the gender stereotypes that come with working in the medical field and truly is a heroine for women. Her motivation and advocacy for women’s rights is still greatly admired today.

Works Cited

“Changing the Face of Medicine | ElizabethBlackwell.” U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, 3 June 2015, cfmedicine.nlm.nih.gov/physicians/biography_35.html.

Michals, Debra. "Elizabeth Blackwell." National Women's History Museum. National Women's History Museum, 2015. Date accessed.

Harrison, Pat. “Elizabeth Blackwell's Struggle to Become a Doctor.” Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University, 2 Feb. 2017, www.radcliffe.harvard.edu/news/schlesinger-newsletter/elizabeth-blackwells-struggle-become-doctor.

"Elizabeth Blackwell." Famous Scientists. famousscientists.org. 10 Jan. 2017. Web. 12/31/2020

<www.famousscientists.org/elizabeth-blackwell/>.

Biography.com Editors. “Elizabeth Blackwell.” The Biography.com Website, A&E Television Networks, 2 Mar. 2020, www.biography.com/scientist/elizabeth-blackwell.