---
title: "Women in medicine"
chunk: 9/11
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_medicine"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:03:52.958164+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Ana Aslan (1897–1988) was a Romanian biologist and physician, specialist in gerontology, academician from 1974 and the director of the National Institute of Geriatrics and Gerontology (1958–1988). Marguerite Champendal (1870–1928) was the first woman from Geneva to earn her M.D. at the University of Geneva in 1900. Emily Siedeberg (1873–1968) became the first female doctor in New Zealand in 1896. Ellen Dougherty (1844–1919) became New Zealand's first registered nurse in 1902 whereas Akenehi Hei (1878–1910) was the first Māori female to qualify as a nurse in 1908 in New Zealand. Yu Meide (1874–1960) became the first Chinese Western medicine female doctor in Macau when she started a medical practice in 1906. Oból Voansnac and Sofie Lyberth were the first Western-educated Greenlandic women to train as midwives in Greenland sometime in the early 20th century. Lilian Grandin (1876–1924) was the first female doctor in Jersey. In 1907, Eleanor Diaper became the first nurse to work as a district nurse in Jersey. Grace Pepe Malemo Haleck (1894–1987), Initia Taveuveu and Feiloa'iga Iosefa became the first qualified female nurses in American Samoa upon completing their training in 1916. Dorothy Pantin (1896–1985) was the first woman doctor and surgeon of the Isle of Man. Deaconess Mette Cathrine Thomsen was the first trained female nurse to work in the Faroe Islands from 1897 to 1915. Eshba Dominika Fominichna (born 1897) became the first female doctor in Abkhazia after having returned from earning her medical degree in 1925 at the Baku State University. Safiye Ali (1894–1952) was the first Turkish woman to have obtained a medical degree. Damaye Soumah Cissé, mother of the renowned educator and politician Jeanne Martin Cissé (1926–2017), was one of the first midwives in Guinea. Josephine Rera (1903–1987) was the first woman doctor in Borough Park and Bensonhurst, Brooklyn in New York City. She received the American Medical Association commendation for 50th Year in Practice. Rera graduated in 1926 with an M.D. diploma at the New York Homeopathic Medical College and Flower Hospital (now the New York Medical College in Valhalla, New York). Lai Po-cheun was the first female to study and graduate as a medical student at the Hong Kong University during the 1920s. Fatma bint Saada Nassor Lamki became the first female doctor in Zanzibar sometime during the 1920s. Kornelija Sertić (1897–1988) was the first woman to graduate from the Medical School in Zagreb (which occurred in 1923). Agnes Yewande Savage (1906–1964) was the first woman in West Africa to qualify in medicine
Joan Refshauge (1906–1979) was the first female doctor appointed to Papua New Guinea by the Australian government in 1947. Henriette Bùi Quang Chiêu (1906–2012) was the first female doctor in Vietnam. Sophie Redmond (1907–1955) became the first female doctor in Suriname after graduating from medical school in 1935. Alma Dea Morani (1907–2001) was the first woman admitted to the American Society of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeons. Yvonne Sylvain (1907–1989) was the first female doctor in Haiti. She was the first woman accepted into the medical school of the University of Haiti, and earned her medical degree there in 1940. Virginia Apgar (1909–1974), significant work in anesthesiology and teratology; founded field of neonatology; first woman granted full professorship at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons. Pearl Dunlevy (1909–2002) was a physician and epidemiologist and the first female president of the Biological Society of the Royal College of Surgeons of Ireland. Isobel Addey Tate (1875–1917) was one of the first women to die while serving as a doctor overseas during World War I. Beatrice Emmeline Simmons, a missionary and nurse, was the first Caucasian (female) formally trained in a health care profession to settle as an educator in Kiribati in 1910. Elizabeth Abimbola Awoliyi (1910–1971) was the first female physician in Nigeria. Badri Teymourtash (1911–1989) was the first Iranian female dentist, who received her higher education in Belgium. Andréa de Balmann (1911–2007) was the first female doctor in French Polynesia. Jane Elizabeth Hodgson (1915–2006) was a pioneering provider of reproductive healthcare for women and advocate for women's rights. Matilda J. Clerk (1916–1984) was the first Ghanaian woman to win a scholarship for university education abroad and the second Ghanaian woman to become a physician. She was also the first woman to obtain a postgraduate diploma in colonial Ghana and West Africa. Irene Ighodaro (1916–1995) was the first Sierra Leonean woman to qualify as a medical doctor and the first West African-born female doctor in Britain
Mary Malahele-Xakana (1917–1982) was the first black woman to register as a medical doctor in South Africa (in 1947). Susan Ofori-Atta (1917–1985) was the first woman to qualify as a physician in colonial Ghana. Fatima Al-Zayani (1918–1982) became the first qualified female nurse in Bahrain in 1941. In 1969, Sadeeqa Ali Al-Awadi became the first female doctor in Bahrain upon her graduating from medical school. Kakish Ryskulova (1918–2018) was the first woman from Kyrgyzstan to qualify as a surgeon. Salma Ismail (1918–2014) was the first Malay woman to qualify as a doctor. Katherine Burdon, wife of the then-government administrator, was among the women formally registered as midwives for St. Kitts and Anguilla in 1920. Ogotu Head (1920–2001) was the first female nursing graduate from Niue after having completed her training in Samoa in 1939. Ethna Gaffney (1920–2011) was the first female RCSI Professor of Chemistry. Estela Gavidia (b. unknown, circa 1920) was the first woman to graduate as a doctor in El Salvador, which occurred in 1945. Gabriela Valenzuela and Froilana Mereles were the first women to graduate with a medical degree in Paraguay in 1924. Valenzuela, however, is considered Paraguay's first practicing female doctor. Augusta Jawara (1924–1981) was the first woman from The Gambia to qualify as a state certified midwife in 1953. She completed her training in England. Kula Fiaola (1924–2003) became the first qualified (female) nurse in Tokelau in 1951. Barbara Ball (1924–2011) was the first female doctor in Bermuda after having started her practice in 1949. Margery Clare McKinnon (1924–2014) became the first female doctor in Norfolk Island around 1955. Jean Lenore Harney (1925–2020) was the first female doctor from St. Kitts, Nevis and Anguilla to study medicine at the United Kingdom's Liverpool University (c. 1940s)
Kapelwa Sikota (1928–2006) became the first registered nurse in Zambia in 1952. Mary Grant (1928–2016) was the third Ghanaian woman to qualify in medicine
Daphne Steele (1929–2004), a nurse from Guyana, became the first Black Matron in the National Health Service in 1964. Josephine Nambooze (born 1930) started her practice as the first female doctor in Uganda in 1962. Selina Rwashana was the first psychiatric nurse in Uganda after having completed her training in the United Kingdom during the 1950s. Tu Youyou (born 1930), first Chinese Nobel laureate in physiology or medicine and the first female citizen of the People's Republic of China to receive a Nobel Prize in any category (2015). Lucie Lods and Jacqueline Exbroyat (1931–2013) were the first female doctors in New Caledonia. Lods started her practice in 1938, whereas Exbroyat did so during the 1960s. Ayten Berkalp (born 1933) became the first female doctor in Northern Cyprus in 1963. Lobsang Dolma Khangkar (1934–1989) was the first female doctor in the region of Tibet.