Milestones and Influencers: Women in Medicine at Jefferson

In 1847, English-born Elizabeth Blackwell broke the barrier in medicine for women. Rejected by the nation’s elite medical schools in New York City and Philadelphia, she applied to Geneva Medical College in New York, where disbelieving administrators allowed students to vote on her application. They approved it, reportedly under the assumption it was a joke. Two years later, Blackwell became the first woman to earn a medical degree from a U.S. college.

At the turn of the 20th century, many older medical colleges began admitting women, albeit under low quotas and often after hostile takeovers of local women’s schools, a process that continued through World War II.

By 1960, only two single-sex medical schools remained: Jefferson and Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania (WMCP).

There was irony: instead of becoming the last to admit women, Jefferson had almost been one of the first to go co-ed by attempting to merge with WMCP in 1916. WMCP declined the merger. A second attempt was made during the 1940s, but failed in the face of intense opposition from WMCP’s alumnae.

Finally, after repeated proposals offered by William Goodner, MD, chair of Microbiology, on June 6, 1960, the Board of Trustees voted without fanfare or argument to admit women.

The first woman accepted was 21-year-old Nancy Szwec, who also won a scholarship. She and eight other women attended their first class at Jefferson on September 11, 1961. Szwec married in her junior year and took her husband’s name, Czarnecki, moving toward the front of the alphabet to also become, in 1965, the first woman to accept a Jefferson diploma.

• 1824 – Jefferson Medical College (now Sidney Kimmel Medical College) is founded; Philadelphia becomes the only city in the world with two medical schools. (University of Pennsylvania’s medical department was established in 1765.)
• 1870 – “JMC Catalog” publishes a repudiation of “a mean and malicious falsehood” of an item in Southern newspapers, saying “Jefferson… will make no distinction of sex or color, among applications for admission.”
• 1891 – JMC Hospital establishes the School of Nursing; 13 students enroll in the first class.
• 1894 – JMC Hospital’s Board of Lady Managers is established. Its first project raises funds for a maternity clinic. The organization’s name changes to the Women’s Board in 1921.
• 1918 – Jefferson faculty approves a resolution to open the school to women. Discussion between Jefferson and Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania (WMCP) results in a 1919 report proposing to share teachers and facilities in an affiliation “without the loss of identity.” No further action takes place for years.
• 1946 – An attempt to merge Jefferson and WMCP is rejected by the WMCP Alumnae Association.
• 1950 – The first non-medical graduate degree granted to a woman from Jefferson College of Graduate Studies, a Master of Science in bacteriology, goes to Sonia Schorr.
• 1952 – JMC Hospital welcomes its first female resident, Elizabeth M. Bogardus, MD, radiology. She went on sick leave in February 1953 and never returned.
• 1953 – JMC Hospital welcomes two women residents who go on to finish a year of training: Vera (Easling) Dettweiler, MD, pediatrics, and Evelyn D. Schmidt, MD, pediatrics.
• 1959 – JMC Hospital welcomes its first female intern, Ann M. Dimitroff, MD. The Faculty Executive Committee, on the motion of William Goodner, MD, chair of microbiology, unanimously votes to recommend admitting women to the medical college.
• 1960 – The Board of Trustees approves the recommendation of the Faculty Executive Committee to admit women.
• 1961 – Nine female Jefferson students arrive on campus in September.
• 1965 – Eight of the first female students graduate in June (the ninth transferred). Nancy Szwec Czarnecki was the first woman to receive her diploma.
• 1968 – Martha Southard of the Radiation Therapy Department becomes the first woman to attain a full professorship.
• 1971 – Cora LeEthel Christian becomes the first Black woman to graduate from Jefferson.
• 1972 – Dorrance Hill “Dodo” Hamilton becomes the first woman named to the Board of Trustees.
• 1978 – Gaylynn G.L. Li-Ma becomes the first Asian woman to graduate from Jefferson.
  
• 1982 – Leah M. Lowenstein becomes the first female dean of Jefferson and first of any U.S. medical school open to men and women; Dean Lowenstein served only 18 months before becoming ill with cancer and resigning.
• 1989 – The Jefferson Alumni Association elects its first female president, Nancy Szwec Czarnecki, MD ’65.
• 1998 – Women comprise 50 percent of the entering class at Jefferson for the first time.
• 2002 – Marion J. Siegman, PhD, becomes first female chair in basic sciences as chair of Molecular Physiology and Biophysics.
• 2002 – Vijay M. Rao, MD, RES ’78, becomes first female chair in a clinical department as the David C. Levin Professor and Chair of Radiology.
• 2011 – The 50 & Forward Celebration marks the “golden anniversary” of the acceptance of Jefferson’s first female medical college students.
• 2015 – Karen Knudsen, PhD, becomes the first female director of Jefferson’s Sidney Kimmel Cancer Center.
• 2015 – Edith Mitchell, MD, director of Jefferson’s Center to Eliminate Cancer Disparities, is named the 116th president of the National Medical Association.
  
• 2020 – Patricia Wellenbach becomes the first female chair-elect of Jefferson’s Board of Trustees, set to assume the role of chair on July 1, 2021.