CONTRIBUTIONS OF KENTUCKY’ S WOMAN PHYSICIANS: 1775-2017
Gordon R. Tobin, MD
National Women Physician Day, February 3 rd, occurs on the birthday of Elizabeth Blackwell( 1821-1910), the first woman to receive a United States medical diploma( Geneva Medical College, 1849). Previously, she taught school in Henderson, Kentucky( 1844). The contributions of Kentucky female physicians have been equally spectacular and should be honored on this occasion.
Any discussion of women in medicine requires recognition of the long-standing, severe discrimination they faced in obtaining medical education, which is well-illustrated by the biographies herein. For example, there were no women educated at the University of Louisville School of Medicine from its 1837 founding until 1916, when Dorothy Vissman took an embryology course, and then enrolled in the 1918 class. Into the late 20 th century, women’ s acceptances remained severely limited. I recall the University of California San Francisco in the 1960s limiting women to 5 percent of the medical class, while none were admitted to dentistry. Currently, compensation for academic female physicians’ lags substantially, and access to leadership positions remains restricted. This makes more remarkable the achievements of the women described herein for their determination, perseverance and talent. This also calls for ongoing attention to the fairness we proclaim, but don’ t always serve.
Fig. 1
DR. FRANCIS COOMES The first physicians to practice in Kentucky were two, Francis( aka Jane) Coomes and George Hart, who were among the first 1775 settlers in Fort Harrod( now Harrodsburg), Kentucky( Fig. 1). Dr. Coomes also served as the first school teacher in the territory. Both Dr. Coomes and Dr. Hart were apprenticeship-trained, an appropriate credential for the times, as only two small American schools existed( College of Philadelphia Medical Department, est. 1765, and Kings College Faculty of Physic, New York, est. 1767). Interestingly, proportionally more medical care was delivered by women of that era than would occur during much of the next 150 years of school-trained physicians.
DR. SARAH MCCURDY FITZBUTLER( 1847-1922) Sarah McCurdy Fitzbutler became the first
Fig. 2 woman, and first African-American woman, to graduate from a Kentucky medical school( Fig 2). Her dual achievements were particularly heroic, as the fierce discrimination visited upon women was even worse for African-Americans in American medicine. Sara Fitzbutler and her husband, Dr. William Henry Fitzbutler, came from Michigan to
Louisville in 1872, where he became
Fig. 3 Louisville’ s first African-American physician. In 1888, he founded here the only school that would accept African-Americans, the Louisville National Medical College( Fig. 3). After raising their children, she entered the school and became Kentucky’ s first woman and African-American woman graduate and first woman medical educator. Together, the Fitzbutlers advocated relentlessly for education for all, for equality, and for universal human rights. She supervised the college’ s hospital, which was praised for its high standards. After Henry’ s 1901 death, she continued to lead the school and hospital until 1912, and she provided voluminous charity care for Louisville’ s African-American citizens.
DR. LILLIAN H. SOUTH( 1879-1996)
Lillian South, of Bowling Green and later Louisville, became the first woman Vice President of the American Medical Association in 1914( Fig. 4). She was a highly-skilled bacteriologist, and was a key member of Dr. J. N. McCormack’ s public health cabinet and
Fig. 4 legislative advocacy team in the early 20 th century. She was appointed State Bacteriologist and was an early champion of public sanitation and vaccinations. She also led the hookworm eradication campaign, and many other sanitation and communicable disease initiatives.
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