page_title: Elizabeth Blackwell
section_title: Medical career in the United States
hierarchical_section_title: Elizabeth Blackwell / Career / Medical career in the United States
caption_attribution_description: English: The Woman's Medical College of the New York Infirmary. [Announcement, 1868-69] New York, 1868 National Library of Medicine.
context_page_description: Elizabeth Blackwell was a British physician, notable as the first woman to receive a medical degree in the United States, and the first woman on the Medical Register of the General Medical Council. Blackwell played an important role in both the United States and the United Kingdom as a social awareness and moral reformer, and pioneered in promoting education for women in medicine. Her contributions remain celebrated with the Elizabeth Blackwell Medal, awarded annually to a woman who has made significant contribution to the promotion of women in medicine.
  Blackwell was initially uninterested in a career in medicine especially after her schoolteacher brought in a bull's eye to use as a teaching tool. Therefore, she became a schoolteacher in order to support her family. This occupation was seen as suitable for women during the 1800s, however, she soon found it unsuitable for her. Blackwell's interest in medicine was sparked after a friend fell ill and remarked that, had a female doctor cared for her, she might not have suffered so much. Blackwell began applying to medical schools and immediately began to endure the prejudice against her sex that would persist throughout her career.
context_section_description: Stateside, Blackwell was faced with adversity, but did manage to get some media support from entities such as the New-York Tribune. She had very few patients, a situation she attributed to the stigma of women doctors as abortionists. In 1852, she began delivering lectures and published The Laws of Life with Special Reference to the Physical Education of Girls, her first work, a volume about the physical and mental development of girls that concerned itself with the preparation of young women for motherhood.
  In 1853, Blackwell established a small dispensary near Tompkins Square. She also took Marie Zakrzewska, a Polish woman pursuing a medical education, under her wing, serving as her preceptor in her pre-medical studies. In 1857, Dr. Marie Zakrzewska, along with Blackwell and her sister Emily, who had also obtained a medical degree, expanded Blackwell's original dispensary into the New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children. Women served on the board of trustees, on the executive committee and as attending physicians. The institution accepted both in- and outpatients and served as a nurse's training facility. The patient load doubled in the second year.
caption: The Woman's Medical College of the New York Infirmary. [Announcement, 1868–69].
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