Celebrating Women’s History Month: Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler

 “…I early conceived a liking for, and sought every opportunity to relieve the sufferings of others.” Rebecca Lee Crumpler

Rebecca Lee Crumpler (b.1831 – d.1895), the first African-American female to receive an MD degree in the United States and one of the first African-Americans to publish a medical text

“It may be well to state here that, having been reared by a kind aunt in Pennsylvania, whose usefulness with the sick was continually sought, I early conceived a liking for, and sought every opportunity to relieve the sufferings of others. Later in life I devoted my time, when best I could, to nursing as a business, serving under different doctors for a period of eight years (from 1852 to 1860); most of the time at my adopted home in Charlestown, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. From these doctors I received letters commending me to the faculty of the New England Female Medical College, whence, four years afterward, I received the degree of doctress of medicine.”

Learn more about the life of Rebecca Lee Crumpler:
http://www.nlm.nih.gov/changingthefaceofmedicine/physicians/biography_73.html

Image source: Nation Library of Medicine