The Resolute Doctor

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The Doctor Was A Woman: Stories of the First Female Physicians on the Frontier

Eighteen-year-old Nellie Mattie MacKnight stepped confidently into the spacious examination room at San Francisco’s Toland Hall Medical School. Thirty-five male students stationed around cadavers spread out on rough board tables turned to watch the bold young woman enter. The smell of decomposing corpses mixed with the tobacco smoke wafting out of the pipes some of the students were puffing on, and it assaulted Helen’s senses. Her knees weakened a bit as she strode over to her appointed area while carrying a stack of books and a soft rawhide case filled with operating tools.

To her fellow students, Nellie was a delicate female with no business studying medicine. Determined to prove them wrong, she stood up straight, opened her copy of Gray’s Anatomy, and removed the medical instruments from the case. It was the spring of 1891. She nodded politely at the future doctors glowering at her. A tall, dapper, bespectacled professor stood at the front of the classroom, watching Nellie’s every move. The sour expression on his face showed his disdain for a woman’s invasion into this masculine territory.

The assignment the students were required to complete within an hour was the dissection of male cadavers’ heads, upper torsos, and pelvic regions. The part of the body Nellie was given to dissect was the pelvis. She studied the corpse lying before her, then nervously flipped through her anatomy textbook.

The students at the other operating tables around her were busy cutting and slicing, but Nellie couldn’t bring herself to pick up a scalpel. The annoyed instructor strode over to her, his brows furrowed. “Do you expect to graduate in medicine or are you just playing around?” he snarled. “I hope to graduate,” Nellie responded in a small voice. All eyes turned to watch the exchange between the professor and the first-year student.

To find out if Nellie was able to complete the assignment read

The Doctor Was A Woman: Stories of the First Female Physicians on the Frontier