A few weeks ago, in physic class, we had a small assignment that required a research paper written about Women participation in STEM. When talking about famous people that have changed the world throughout science, technology, engineering, and math women are not often brought up into the conversations, even though there are a tremendous amount of women that changed the world throughout the aspect of STEM.
This is the research paper that I have written about a woman that change the face of medicine.
“Change is hard at first, messy in the middle and gorgeous at the end. ” Looking through the life of a woman named Elizabeth Blackwell, inspired a tremendous amount of people, especially women in accomplishing their field in a medical study.
Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell was born on February 3, 1821, in Bristol, England. She was raised in a household that strongly believes in Education. Blackwell’s family moved to the United State in 1832, both for financial issues and to join the anti-slavery movement. Six years later after having been moved to America, unfortunately, her father passed away. Even Though her father passed away, her mother and two older sisters worked as an educator. In addition, Elizabeth Blackwell also gets her first job as a teacher in the US. As a group of educated people, the Blackwell’s family campaigned for women’s rights and supported the anti-slavery movement.
Further on, Elizabeth Blackwell became the first woman that earn the first M.D degree from the New York’s Geneva Medical College, in 1849. After being the first woman who earned the first M.D degree, Elizabeth Blackwell has changed the face of medicine. She encouraged many more women to get in medical school. With the help of her sister and another doctor, Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell has established the New York Infirmary for Women and Children at 64 Bleecker Street in 1857. This institution and its medical college for women (opened 1867) provided training and experience for women doctors and medical care for the poor. Elizabeth Blackwell was also an author of many books related to science.
With a lot of accomplishment, at the same time, there were also challenges of her way to the success. At the time, when she was finding universities, most of the universities and classes were men and sometimes forbidden for women to study. She applied to the New York’s Geneva Medical College and the man students in the class needed to vote for her to get accepted to the school. The man students took it as a joke and voted yes. As a woman, she also gets a lot of discriminations, which sometimes discourages her from the studying. Moreover, while doing a procedure on an infant she contracted a disease that caused one of her eyes to go blind. With one blind eye, she could not pursue her dream of becoming a surgeon.
Currently, women are not the spotlight of the STEM field. It is important to spotlight their accomplishment since it encouraged many other females to participate in the STEM field. Representing the male students as personally believe that there should be an equality between men and women.