Elizabeth Blackwell

(http://www.nlm.nih.gov/changingthefaceofmedicine/physicians/)

Elizabeth Blackwell was born in England. She moved to the United States in 1832. She had two older sisters, Anna and Marian. Her mother opened a private school in Cincinnati to support her family. Elizabeth Blackwell was a teacher while she studied privately. In 1847, she began looking for a medical school that would accept her, but all the schools rejected her, because she was a woman. At Geneva Medical College at Geneva, New York, the college asked the students if she should stay. The students just thought it was a joke, but when they saw it was serious, the students and the townspeople were devastated. The medical school kept her away from some lessons, because they thought that it was improper for woman. Elizabeth studied medicine to fulfill her dream of becoming a woman physician. She wanted to help women who prefer to talk to women about their health problems.

In 1849, she graduated becoming the first woman doctor. She moved back to England for a short time, and then went to Paris for a midwives’ course. From Paris she went back to England and worked at a hospital called St. Bartholomew. In 1851, she returned to New York, and all the hospitals refused her degree. She was even refused to rent the house she wanted. She had to buy her own house to begin to practice being a doctor. She began to see women and girls in her house. She decided she didn’t want to be married, but she did want a child.

In 1854, she adopted an orphan, named Katharine Barry, known as Kitty. They remained friends into Elizabeth’s old age. When Elizabeth returned to the United States in 1859, she started her own hospital, for needy women and children. During the Civil War, the Blackwell sisters helped to arrange a Women’s Central Association of Relief where they trained nurses, to help in the war. In 1875, Elizabeth was chosen as the professor of gynecology at the London School of Medicine for Children, founded by Elizabeth Garrett Anderson. In 1907, Elizabeth retired after a serious fall downstairs. She died in Sussex in 1910.

Elizabeth Blackwell is a hero because if she had never done this all the woman would have to go to men doctors. She was a good woman I think, even though I never met her. She has changed the world for all of the women. Because of her, there are women doctors. I don’t think anyone could have done it. So that is why she is a hero.