A FIRST IN MANY THINGS
An extract of what wikipedia says:
"an English physician and suffragette, the first Englishwoman to qualify as a physician and surgeon in Britain, the co-founder of the first hospital staffed by women, the first dean of a British medical school, the first female doctor of medicine in France, the first woman in Britain to be elected to a school board and, as Mayor of Aldeburgh, the first female mayor and magistrate in Britain."
GRADUATED IN FRANCE BECAUSE OF PREJUDICE AT HOME
She got her "GP degree" in France in 1870, because the all-male students at the Medical school she attended at the Middlesex Hospital in 1861 sent a memorial to the administration, which had been otherwise favourable to her attendance. It would be interesting to have access to the list of signatories, they are all now in their graves, and if not forgiven at least forgotten...
This is a case of a clear debt of what would be called the NHS many years later, to other countries, here France. The possibility for staff to have qualified abroad -in the EU- and be employed in the UK, should never be undervalued, when the health service suffers from lack of qualified staff being available locally. I had the misfortune to be a patient in two hospitals of London, and this misfortune was compensated by being attended by very qualified staff with degrees from many countries, in particular from Southern Europe and Eastern Europe .
IN THOSE YEARS THE USA
The biography of Elizabeth Garrett Anderson also shows that the USA had been the first country to have a female doctor in 1849, Elizabeth Blackwell. Now, it took them 167 more years to nominate a female candidate for their presidential election, or in absolute terms 229 years after the US constitution enshrined freedom and democracy in its founding text.
Thanks google for celebrating Elizabeth Garrett Anderson's life!
