---
title: "Women in medicine"
chunk: 8/11
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"
---

Ernestina Paper (b. unknown, circa mid–1800s) was the first Italian woman to receive an advanced degree (in medicine) in 1877.
Doctor Ethel Constance Cousins (1882–1944) and nurse Elizabeth Brodie were the first European women admitted to Bhutan in 1918 as part of a missionary effort to curtail a cholera outbreak.
Muthulakshmi Reddi (1886–1968) was one of the early female medical doctors in India and a major social reformer.
María Elisa Rivera Díaz (1887–1981) (1909), Ana Janer (1909), Palmira Gatell (1910), and Dolores Piñero (1892–1975) (1913) were the first women to earn a medical degree in Puerto Rico. María Elisa Rivera Díaz and Ana Janer graduated in the same medical school class in 1909 and thus could both be considered the first female Puerto Rican physicians.
Anna Petronella van Heerden (1887–1975) was the first Afrikaner woman to qualify as a medical doctor in South Africa. Her thesis, which she obtained a doctorate on in 1923, was the first medical thesis written in Afrikaans.
Matilde Hidalgo (1889–1974) was the first female doctor in Ecuador.
Johanna Hellman (1889–1982) was a German physician who specialized in surgery, and the first woman to be a member of the German Society for Surgery.
Sun Chau Lee (周理信, 1890–1979) was one of the first female Chinese doctors of Western medicine in China.
Mabel Wolff (1890–1981) and her sister Gertrude L. Wolff developed the first midwifery training school in Sudan in 1930. Mastura Khidir, one of the original students, was awarded a medal from King George V in 1945 for being the last surviving midwife from the first graduating class.
Mary Hearn (1891–1969) was a gynaecologist and first woman fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland.
Concepción Palacios Herrera (1893–1981) was the first female physician in Nicaragua.
Evelyn Totenhofer (1894–1977) became the first (female) resident nurse for Pitcairn Islands in 1944.
Jane Cummins (1899–1982), who possessed a DMRE and DTM&H, was an officer in the WRAF.
Irene Condachi (1899–1970), who earned her M.D. in 1927, was one of only two practicing female doctors in Malta during World War II.
Ah-hsin Tsai (1899–1990) was colonial Taiwan's first female physician.

==== 20th and 21st centuries ====