Women of Merit – be inspired!

Written by Jane C Woods  Email This Post -  Print This Post

We all need a bit of inspiration from time to time so I hope you enjoy reading about this truly inspirational woman!

Elizabeth Blackwell, born 1821 in Bristol, England, (her family emigrated to America ten years later), was determined to become a doctor in an age when women were not permitted to enter medicine as a career. She didn’t let this deter her.

Perseverance

She applied to TWENTY EIGHT medical schools and was turned down by them all! Finally she was accepted by Geneva College in New York, not as the act of an enlightened institution but because an eminent professor had pressed for her to be accepted.

The college said they would let the students vote on whether to accept her and the students voted yes as a joke! But she was in and she showed them! In 1849 she graduated as head of her class; the first American woman to obtain a medical degree. She went on to become a trailblazer for other women to follow, a truly inspirational woman.

“What special contribution can women make to medicine? Not blind imitation of men…for this would endorse the widespread error that the human race consists chiefly of men. Our duty is loyalty to right and opposition to wrong, in accordance with the esential principles of our own nature.”

So, next time you get a knock back in your career think of Elizabeth Blackwell and her tenacity; pick yourself up and give it another go!

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