Founded in 1850, The Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania (WMCP), formally known as The Female Medical College of Pennsylvania, was the first American medical college dedicated to teaching women medicine and allowing them to earn the Doctor of Medicine degree, M.D.[1]
1867- The Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania was renamed the Woman's Medical College; the college trained thousands of women physicians from all over the world, many of whom went on to practice medicine internationally.[1]
History
The Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania known as one of the earliest women's colleges designed for teaching woman medicine has a notable history.
Established by forward- thinking Quakers,[2] the college was a testament to their belief in women's right to education and their conviction that women should have the opportunity to become physicians.[2]
The Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania provided educational opportunities and medical training to women of various backgrounds. Some of these pioneers were among the first of their race or country to earn medical degrees. Opportunities to earn a Western Medicine degree were offered to the first Native American women, African- American women as well as to women from India, Syria, Japan and Canada.[3]
At the time, the college was known to provide a rare opportunity for women to teach, perform research, and learn to manage and run a medical school, all due in part to the establishment of Women's Hospital in 1861- this also allowed women to learn and practice in a hospital setting.[4]
In 1930, the college opened its new campus in the East Falls section of Philadelphia, This facility combined teaching and hospital clinical care in one. It was the first purpose-built hospital in the nation.
The college was the longest-lasting women's medical college in America. It became coeducational in 1970 when it admitted four men, and in 1970, the school changed its name to The Medical College of Pennsylvania.[4]
William J. Mullen (1805-1882) served as the first president of the Board of Corporators of Woman's Medical College. Mullen was a wealthy manufacturer turned philanthropist best known for advocating prison reform. Additionally, Mullen worked as a prison agent and established the House of Industry in Philadelphia, a neighborhood center that assisted immigrants and people experiencing homelessness.[4]
Joseph S. Longshore (1809-1879), was a Quaker activist-physician and abolition advocate.
Dr. Bartholomew Fussell (1794-1871) an abolitionist and uncle to Dr. Edwin Fussell (1813-1882), one of the earliest faculty members.[4]
R.C. Smedley's History of the Underground Railroad cites Bartholomew Fussell as proposing, in 1846, the idea for a college that would train female doctors. It was a tribute to his departed sister, who Bartholomew believed could have been a doctor if women had been given the opportunity then.
At a meeting at Fussell's house, in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania. Fussell invited five doctors to carry out his idea. The doctors invited were: Edwin Fussell (Bartholomew's nephew) M.D., Franklin Taylor, M.D., Ellwood Harvey, M.D., Sylvester Birdsall, M.D., and Dr. Ezra Michener.
Dr. Fussell would support the college, but had little to do with it after it started in 1850 in Philadelphia.[5]
Ellwood Harvey, who attended the 1846 meeting, began teaching at the college in 1852.[5]
The Feminist Movement during the early to mid-19th century generated support for the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania. The Society of Friends in Philadelphia, a large group of Quakers, supported the women's rights movements and the development of the Female MCP.[6] MCP was initially located in the rear of 229 Arch Street in Philadelphia; it was changed to 627 Arch Street when Philadelphia renumbered streets in 1858.[7] In July 1861, the board of corroborators of the Female Medical College of Pennsylvania chose to rent rooms for the college from the Woman's Hospital of Philadelphia on North College Avenue.[8]
Administration
The first dean of what was then known as the Female Medical College was Nathaniel R. Mosely, who served in the position from 1850 until 1856.[9] The second dean was also a man, Edwin B. Fussell, who held the position from 1856 to 1866.[10]
From then on, the Woman's College had a long history of female deans. Ann Preston was the first woman to be a dean of this medical college.[11] Dr. Preston was a dedicated dean. She was determined to provide woman's medical college students with the best clinical training by arranging for her students to attend clinical demonstrations at the Blockley Almshouse in West Philadelphia.[4]
The following women were deans of the college in the years stated:
No woman was found to replace Marion Fay. After her, the position of dean was held by Glen R. Leymaster from 1964 to 1970,[18] at which time the institution became known as the Medical College of Pennsylvania.[19]
Issues in clinical training
The new Amphitheatre, 1911
The Female Medical College of Pennsylvania faced difficulties in providing clinical training for its students.[20] Because women in medicine struggled with acceptance in a man's medical world. Ann Preston won a right to expand clinical training for her female students. When the woman attended lectures in the surgical amphitheater, they were greeted with catcalls and were assaulted with spit, spitballs, and tobacco juice by the male medical students.[4]
Almost all medical institutions were confronted with the demand for more clinical practice due to the rise of surgery, physical diagnosis, and clinical specialties.[21] During the 1880s, clinical instruction at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania relied mainly on the demonstration clinics.[20]
In 1887, Anna Broomall, professor of obstetrics for the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, established a maternityoutpatient service in a poor area of South Philadelphia for student education.[20] By 1895, many students cared for three or four women giving birth.[22]
East Falls campus and Drexel University
Falls Center
The East Falls Campus was the first purpose-built hospital in the nation. Its design allowed both teaching and hospital care to take place in one facility, helping provide more clinical care. Post-WWII housing shortages in the city were a catalyst for the development of additions to the East Falls Campus. The first of these was the Ann Preston Building (designed by Thaddeus Longstreth), which provided housing and classrooms for student nurses.
Today, the building is known as the Falls Center. It is operated by Iron Stone Real Estate Partners as student housing, commercial space, and medical offices.[23]
In 1993, the Medical College of Pennsylvania merged with Hahnemann Medical College, retaining its Queen Lane campus. In 2003, the two medical colleges were absorbed as a part of Drexel University College of Medicine, creating new opportunities for the large student body for clinical practice in settings ranging from urban hospitals to small rural practices.
Notable alumni
Photo taken in 1885 of Anandibai Joshee, who graduated in 1886; Kei Okami who graduated in 1889; and Sabat Islambooly, who graduated in 1890. Photo courtesy Legacy Center Archives, Drexel College of Medicine.
Ann Preston (1813-1872) was a Quaker woman who was a member of the first graduating class of the WMCP and later became the first female dean of a medical school in the United States.
Mary Putnam Jacobi- was the lead American woman medical scientist of the nineteenth century.
Rebecca J. Cole was an American physician, organization founder and social reformer. In 1867, she became the second African-American woman to become a doctor in the United States, after Rebecca Lee Crumpler three years earlier. Throughout her life she faced racial and gender-based barriers to her medical education, training in all-female institutions which were run by the first generation of graduating female physicians.
Drexel University College of Medicine is the medical school of Drexel University, a private research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The medical school represents the consolidation of two medical schools: Hahnemann Medical College, originally founded as the nation's first college of homeopathy, and the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, the first U.S. medical school for women, which became the Medical College of Pennsylvania when it admitted men in 1970; these institutions merged in 1993, became affiliated with Drexel University College of Medicine in 1998, and were fully absorbed into the university in 2002. With one of the nation's largest enrollments for a private medical school, Drexel University College of Medicine is the second most applied-to medical school in the United States. It is ranked no. 83 in research by U.S. News & World Report.
Anandibai Gopalrao Joshi was the first Indian female doctor of western medicine. She was the first woman from the erstwhile Bombay presidency of India to study and graduate with a two-year degree in western medicine in the United States. She was also referred to as Anandibai Joshi and Anandi Gopal Joshi.
The Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University (LKSOM), located on the Health Science Campus of Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is one of seven schools of medicine in Pennsylvania that confers the Doctor of Medicine degree. It also confers Ph.D and M.S. degrees in biomedical science, and offers a Narrative Medicine program.
Nancy E. Gary was president and chief executive officer of the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates, executive vice president of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and dean of its F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine. She was also clinical professor of medicine at George Washington University School of Medicine & Health Sciences. She was considered a change agent in medical education and "a 'powerhouse' in academic medicine."
Margaret Dorothea Craighill was an American psychiatrist. She was born in Southport, North Carolina, the daughter of Colonel William E. Craighill and Mrs. Mary Craighill. Craighill was a third generation officer following in the footsteps of her grandfather, Brigadier General William Price Craighill, and her father. Both men graduated from the United States Military Academy, commonly referred to as West Point, in West Point, New York. On May 28, 1943, she became the first woman commissioned officer in the United States Army Medical Corps. Major Craighill served through World War II and afterward worked with the Veterans Administration. She died on July 20, 1977, aged 78, in Southbury, Connecticut.
Ann Preston was an American physician, activist, and educator. As head of the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, she was the first female dean of a medical school in the United States of America.
Rachel Littler Bodley was an American professor, botanist, and university leader. She was best known for her term as Dean of the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania (1874–1888). She helped found the American Chemical Society in New York City.
The Woman's Hospital of Philadelphia was established in 1861 to provide clinical experience for Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania students, a group of Quaker women, particularly Ann Preston.
Clara Marshall was an American physician, educator, and author. She was dean of the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania from 1888 to 1917.
Martha Tracy served as dean of the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania (WMCP) from 1917 to 1940, leading the institution through the Great Depression. She created a department of preventive medicine within the college and was the first professor of preventive medicine at WMC.
Emeline Horton Cleveland was an American physician and one of the first women to perform major abdominal or gynecological surgery in the United States. She became one of the first woman physicians associated with a large public hospital in the United States, and she established one of the first nursing assistant training programs in the country.
Amy Stokes Barton, a pioneer woman ophthalmologist, was born in Camden County, New Jersey, October 1, 1841, daughter of Joseph Barton, a farmer, and Rachel B. Evans.
Bartholomew Fussell (1794–1871) was an American abolitionist who participated in the Underground Railroad by providing refuge for fugitive slaves at his safe house in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, and other locations in Pennsylvania and Ohio. He aided an estimated 2000 slaves in escaping from bondage. He was a founding member of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Fussell was an advocate for women serving as physicians, and he influenced the founding of the Women's Medical College of Pennsylvania. He worked as a practicing physician, including providing medical services for fugitive slaves.
Henry Leffmann was an American chemist, physician and writer.
Isabel "Belle" Cobb was a Cherokee physician and educator best known for being the first woman physician in Indian Territory.
Ruth Webster Lathrop was an American physician and medical school professor, who taught physiology at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania.
Marion Spencer Fay was an American physician, dean, teacher, and advocate. She was president and dean of Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania. Fay received her bachelor's degree at Newcomb College at Tulane University. She studied for her master's at the University of Colorado. Her PhD work was at Yale University where she focused on physiologic chemistry.
Anna Elizabeth Broomall was an American obstetrician, surgeon, and educator who taught obstetrics at the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania. She established the first maternal health and prenatal care clinic in the United States, located at the Woman's Hospital of Philadelphia, and used surgical innovations to reduce maternal mortality.
Frances Culbreth Van Gasken was an American physician and suffragist, based in Philadelphia.
↑ Peitzman, Steven J. (2000). A new and untried course: Woman's Medical College and Medical College of Pennsylvania, 1850 – 1998. New Brunswick, NJ [u.a.]: Rutgers University Press. p.6. ISBN978-0-8135-2815-1.
↑ Peitzman, Steven J. (2000). A new and untried course: Woman's Medical College and Medical College of Pennsylvania, 1850 – 1998. New Brunswick, NJ [u.a.]: Rutgers University Press. p.13. ISBN978-0-8135-2815-1.
↑ Peitzman, Steven J. (2000). A new and untried course: Woman's Medical College and Medical College of Pennsylvania, 1850 – 1998. New Brunswick, NJ [u.a.]: Rutgers University Press. p.22. ISBN978-0-8135-2815-1.
↑ Fay, MS (July 1965). "Ann Preston: Dean of the Woman's Medical College of Pennsylvania, 1866–1872". Transactions & Studies of the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. 33: 43–8. PMID14344617.
↑ Rogers, Fred B. (December 1964). "Martha Tracy (1876–1942): Exceptional Woman of Public Health". Archives of Environmental Health. 9 (6): 819–821. doi:10.1080/00039896.1964.10663931. PMID14203108.
↑ Dixon, Mark (2011). The hidden history of Chester County: lost tales from the Delaware and Brandywine Valleys. Charleston, SC: History Press. ISBN978-1609490737.
1 2 3 Peitzman (2000), A New and Untried Course, p. 78
↑ Edward Atwater, "'Making Fewer Mistakes': A History of Students and Patients," pp. 165–187, Bulletin of the History of Medicine 57, 1983
↑ Peitzman (2000), A New and Untried Course, p. 79
↑ Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman (Drama, Family, Western), Jane Seymour, Joe Lando, Shawn Toovey, CBS, Sullivan Company, January 1, 1993, retrieved April 22, 2024{{citation}}: CS1 maint: others (link)
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