DARE TO DREAM BIG!: From Medical School Reject to Medical Pioneer and Activist

Imagine This: You are a young woman who really wants to be a doctor, but there is a big problem. There are no women doctors because women are not admitted to medical schools. So what do you do? Do you give up your dream?

 You’re born in Bristol, England, in 1821, one of nine children. Your family is a most unusual family because the principle of equality is a guiding rule in your home, and your parents believe that girls should be as well educated as boys.

 In 1831, hard times come to England. People lose their jobs and rioting breaks out in Bristol. People are killed and buildings are set on fire. Your family is deeply upset by the violence and your father sees little hope of saving his sugar refinery business, so he decides to make a fresh start in America where there are more opportunities.

 You’re eleven when your family moves to America and settles in New York City. When your father suffers great losses during the financial depression of 1837 your family moves from New York City to Cincinnati, Ohio, on the advice of a cousin.

 Only three months after your move to Ohio, your father dies and your family is left destitute. Your mother opens a boarding school in your home while your brothers and sisters also work to help provide income for the family.

 At age twenty-three, you’re asked to take charge of a girls’ school in Henderson, Kentucky, but you’re so upset by the treatment of the slaves and the proslavery attitudes of the South, that you return to Ohio within a year.

 By age twenty-four, you’re longing for a purpose in life. You want to do something important, but you’re a girl, so what can you do?

 Mary Donaldson, a family friend, is dying of cancer and she finally convinces you that you can become a doctor. She tells you that somebody has to be the first woman doctor. Why not you?

 You apply for admission to twenty-nine medical schools and you’re turned down by twenty-eight of them. Then finally, when you’re twenty-six, little Geneva College in upstate New York, the twenty-ninth school says YES!

 You find out later that the Geneva medical students had been given the final say on your admission because everyone thought your application was a joke. No one had even taken it seriously.

 You earn the respect of your fellow students, however, and in 1849, you graduate first in your class—-the first woman to receive a medical degree from a medical school in America. January 23, 1849, is a day that will forever change the world of medicine!

 You move to Paris to continue your medical education, but your dream of becoming a surgeon is shattered after you contract a severe eye infection from an infected baby you’re treating.

 You return to New York City in 1851 where you open a one-room clinic to serve women, but you do much more than treat sickness. You’re a strong believer in preventive medicine and you teach your patients the importance of good hygiene and nutrition. You believe that prevention is better than cure!

 Your one-room clinic expands to become a hospital in 1857 and becomes known as the New York Infirmary for Women and Children. Other women can study to become nurses at your hospital and in 1868, you add a medical college for women which means that now women can become doctors as well as nurses.

 By the time you die on May 31, 1910, at the age of eighty-nine, you have left a legacy that paves the way for the countless generations of female physicians who follow you.

      “If Society will not admit of woman’s free development, then society must be remodeled.”

                                               Elizabeth Blackwell (1821-1910)

 Excerpted from They Stood Alone!: 25 Men and Women Who Made a Difference by Sandra McLeod Humphrey

For More about Elizabeth Blackwell

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VEEiG-nfHtc

 Giving Back: In 1869, Elizabeth Blackwell returned to England and spent the rest of her life working to expand medical opportunities for women there as she had in America.

Did You Know that eventually Elizabeth Blackwell’s damaged left eye had to be replaced with a glass eye?

 Something to Think about: What if all twenty-nine colleges had rejected Elizabeth Blackwell’s application? How do you think that would have changed the history of medicine?

 Willoughby and I hope you enjoyed this week’s true story and will be back next week for another story to inspire you to DARE TO DREAM BIG!