Inspiring Female Medical Pioneers Who Changed American Healthcare (2025)

• Women have made numerous important contributions to the field of medicine.
• Despite facing challenges such as exclusion from medical schools, limited opportunities, and systemic biases, many women throughout history have defied the odds to advance medicine and reshape healthcare.
• Their resilience and achievements continue to inspire new generations of healthcare professionals.

For centuries, women have played a vital role in healing and caregiving, yet their contributions to medicine have often gone unrecognized. From ancient midwives and herbalists to modern surgeons and researchers, women have shaped the course of medical history — often overcoming significant barriers to do so.

Despite facing exclusion from medical schools, limitations on professional opportunities, and systemic biases, countless women have defied the odds to advance medicine. Their breakthroughs in patient care, scientific discovery, and advocacy have saved lives and reshaped healthcare as we know it.

As Women’s History Month comes to a close this year, Healthgrades is celebrating the women who refused to be sidelined, challenged the status quo, and made lasting contributions to medicine. Their resilience and achievements continue to inspire new generations of healthcare professionals, ensuring that the future of medicine is more inclusive, innovative, and impactful than ever before.

Elizabeth Blackwell made history as the first woman in America to earn a medical degree. After moving to the U.S. from her birth country of England in 1832, Blackwell was inspired to pursue medicine by a dying friend’s wish for a female doctor.

However, her path was far from easy. At a time when medical schools excluded women, Blackwell was rejected by every institution to which she applied. Finally, Geneva College in New York accepted her as a joke, yet she persevered, facing harsh discrimination throughout her education. Professors had her sit separately in lectures, and community members labeled her a “bad” woman for defying gender norms.

Despite these barriers, Blackwell graduated first in her class in 1849. At first, she struggled to practice in hospitals due to gender bias, but later, in 1857, she opened the New York Infirmary for Women and Children. In 1868, Blackwell founded a medical college in New York City.

The following year, she appointed her sister to lead the institution and moved permanently to London. There, in 1875, she became a professor of gynecology at the newly established London School of Medicine for Women.

Rebecca Crumpler overcame significant barriers in her journey to becoming the first Black woman to earn a medical degree in the United States. Raised by an aunt who cared for sick neighbors, Crumpler worked as a nurse before enrolling in the New England Female Medical College in 1860, a time when only 300 women were doctors in a country with 54,000 physicians — none of them Black.

Despite facing discrimination, Crumpler graduated in 1864 and began her work at the Freedmen’s Bureau, serving newly freed slaves. As a Black female doctor, she encountered prejudice but remained committed to her mission of caring for poor women and children.

Crumpler opened her own practice in Boston in 1869 and authored A Book of Medical Discourses in 1883, which is believed to be the first medical text by a Black author.

Mary Corinna Putnam Jacobi defied societal expectations for women of her time by pursuing a medical career. Born in 1842, she was initially educated at home and in private schools, later publishing essays at a young age.

Putnam Jacobi earned her MD from the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania in 1864, overcoming resistance from faculty who initially opposed her. Despite this, she graduated early, prompting the resignation of the dean. Putnam Jacobi’s early practice was limited, as she faced discrimination, but she advanced her training in Paris, advocating for co-education in medicine.

She then returned to New York, where she helped found the Women’s Medical Association of New York City in 1872 and worked to improve medical education for women.

Putnam Jacobi’s scientific work challenged prevailing views on women’s health by debunking the idea that women were weaker during menstruation, and her 1876 essay won the Boylston Prize.

During her career, she became a prominent physician, securing membership in major medical societies, and was the first woman to join the New York Academy of Medicine.

Susan La Flesche Picotte, who was born on Nebraska’s Omaha reservation, found her motivation to become the first Native American to earn an MD degree in the experiences of a woman who died while waiting for a white doctor to help her.

Because her father, Chief Iron Eye, recognized the need for her to be educated in order to navigate both the Native American and Euro-American worlds, La Flesche was sent to the Presbyterian school on the reservation and then to the Hampton Institute at age 14.

She later applied to the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, despite the fact that even privileged women faced immense opposition to pursuing medicine. La Flesche graduated first in her class and returned to the reservation at age 24 to serve as the only doctor for over 1,200 people.

In 1913, La Flesche opened the first hospital on a reservation not funded by the government. She continued her work until her death in 1915.

Virginia Apgar broke new ground as an obstetrical anesthesiologist and public health advocate. Initially aiming for a career in surgery, she shifted to anesthesiology because few women had opportunities in the field. Despite facing gender-based limitations in a male-dominated profession, she became the first woman to hold a full professorship at Columbia University.

In the 1950s, Apgar recognized the need for a standardized method to assess the health of newborns, creating the Apgar score, a simple but effective system that evaluates infants’ physical condition immediately after birth. This innovation revolutionized neonatal care, laying the foundation for the development of neonatology and neonatal intensive care units.

She also confronted societal and institutional barriers when redirecting the March of Dimes’ focus from polio to birth defects and infant health issues, such as preterm birth. Her work included promoting the rubella vaccination, advocating for Rh immune globulin, and pushing for public health legislation to protect infants.

Apgar’s legacy endures in the widespread use of the Apgar score and ongoing advancements in perinatal health.