Elizabeth Blackwell: A Career In My Medical Degree

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Elizabeth Blackwell You probably know how the medical field has changed throughout time but do you actually know who helped create that change? I was the first open women to receive a medical degree in the United States. Before I received my medical degree only men were physicians. Men believed women couldn’t handle seeing the body, and working to fix it. When I graduated medical school I changed that. I may have grown up in a poor, humble family and worked as a low-level teacher, but my determination to receive my medical degree inspired many women to reach out of their comfort zone, and changed the medical field forever: I am Elizabeth Blackwell. My birth, childhood, and teenage years were vaguely normal for my beliefs and status. I was …show more content…
I had a very difficult time finding a job after my graduation. No one would accept me because I was a woman. After my graduation I decided to travel to England. I had many reasons to travel to England, and one of them was to find work. No one in America would hire me, so I decided to take a shot in England(1). Once again it was terribly hard to find a job in England, but after searching far and wide I found a place. This place was called La Maternite, and it wasn’t the best hospital ever. It was very gloomy and dark, and I barely got paid anything, but I still enjoyed myself. It was the first real look at the medical profession that I had. One very memorable sequence that took place was my eye infection. I was trying to inject a baby with a needle, and the medicine squirted all over my eye. It was immensely painful, and I was in bed for weeks. They had no idea what to do, so they decided to just remove it and replace it with a glass eye(3). I was absolutely devastated because my dream of becoming a surgeon was over, but that didn’t mean my whole medical career was over. After my whole eye incident I decided to try to find an office where I could do all my work, and try to make a practice. It was extremely difficult to try and find an office. Once I finally found a tiny office I was overjoyed, but …show more content…
Just like in England it was hard just to find a office to start work, but I worked and worked as hard as I could and my dream came true. In January 1854 some brilliant doctors, my sister, and I opened the New York Dispensary for Women and Children. This dispensary let women see doctors of the same sex, and poor women and children to seek medical care(1). This was my dream job even though I got no pay. I was happy I was helping so many people, especially women. Around this time I also was getting quite lonely. To help my loneliness I decided to adopt a seven-year old Irish child called Kitty(1). Her cheerfulness rubbed off on me, and I am very thankful for that. After a while the New York Dispensary was working and treating patients excellently, so my coworkers and me decided we wanted to make it a full fledged hospital with working rooms, and medical staff. In May 1857 The New York Infirmary for Indigent Women and Children opened(1). After working happily in the New York Infirmary I decided to travel around the United States and England and give lectures on the health of women. The health and body of women were rarely talked about those days, and I wanted to change that for the better. I traveled giving lectures and speeches about the woman's body and how we should keep it healthy and working right(7). Like many of my travels my child Kitty traveled along side me. At first