Elizabeth Blackwell was born on February 3, 1821 in Bristol,
England to two very loving and supportive parents. Her
Father died when she was 17 and her mother and sisters
opened a school to support themselves. Elizabeth was a
teacher at this school until it closed in 1842, when her
younger brothers were old enough to provide for their
family. She continued to take teaching jobs, but knew that
wasn’t what she wanted to do. She knew she wanted to do
something that she described as a “hard challenge”. Soon
after this, a friend of hers, Mary Donaldson, died of an
unknown internal illness. She had been too embarrassed to
see a doctor about the symptoms of her disease until it
was too late to treat. Elizabeth thought that maybe if her
friend had been able to see a woman doctor, she might have
lived. She wrote: “The idea of winning a doctor’s
degree gradually assumed the aspect of a great moral
struggle, and the moral fight possessed many attraction for
me.”
Her decision to be a doctor was not a long-felt desire,
but a response to a strongly felt need among woman. So in
1847, she decided to apply to a major medical school. No
schools would take her though, until she tried her 29th
school, Geneva Medical College in upstate New York.
The students voted on whether to let her in or not, and
The Essay on Why Elizabeth Blackwell Is A Hero
... questions tried to discourage her form trying to become a doctor. Elizabeth did not give up.For the next few years she continued ... Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell, the first woman doctor, is a hero because she showed such perseverance to get into and to attend medical school and ... there after she blazed other trails in the medical profession. Elizabeth was born in Bristol, ...
she was accepted by popular demand. She graduated in 1849
at the top of her class.
This was a big accomplishment, but after she graduated, she
had to put her knowledge to use. Finally, after searching
for a hospital of some sort that would take her, she
worked at La Maternite in Paris. This wasn’t exactly what
she had in mind, but after a while she decided she’d like
to specialize as an obstetric surgeon. This dream was cut
short then she contracted an eye disease that caused her
to lose sight in one eye, and damaged her sight in the other
. Realizing that she could never be a surgeon because of
her poor eyesight, she decided to pursue the occupation of
a general physician.
In 1850 she was accepted to train at St. Bartholomew’s
Hospital in London. Finally she met women there that were
sympathetic to her struggle. She was tempted to stay in
London, but decided to go back to New York where she would
receive less prejudice. On her return, she set up practice,
in 1853 she set up a dispensary, and in 1857 her dream of a
hospital for women run by women was established in the “New
York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children”. The
hospital
only charged its patients 4 dollars a week and didn’t charge
them at all if they couldn’t afford it. Which led to the
Hospitals constant state of financial need.
One year later she returned to England to campaign for the
establishment of medical training for women. She gave many
popular lectures, inspiring, among others, Elizabeth
Garrett Anderson, the first woman to qualify as a doctor
in England. But yet again she decided to return to the US
determined to set up a medical school for women, which she
achieved in 1868. When Elizabeth Blackwell was 58 she moved
to a cottage in England, where she began to write an
autobiography. She died when she was 89, not allowing her
to finish her book.
