Where Are the Black Female Doctors?
In 1864, Rebecca Lee Crumpler became the first Black woman to earn a medical degree in the United States. Over the next 20 years, she provided medical care to countless people in the Black community, first helping former slaves in Virginia, and later tending to the sick in her own private practice in Boston. Most of her patients had few other options for access to healthcare. At the age of 52, she published a book of medical advice. It is the only known medical book written by a 19th century Black woman.
But few people have heard of Crumpler—or the stories and contributions of so many other Black female physicians, even those who rose to positions of considerable prominence at universities and government agencies. These women have remained hidden in the folds of history, even to contemporary Black female medical students like Jasmine Brown.
I had never met a Black woman physician.
When Brown began to pursue a pre-med track in college, she realized she had never met a Black female physician nor learned about any in school. So she decided to dedicate a two-year Rhodes Scholarship at the University of Oxford to studying the lives and careers of Black female physicians through interviews. The title of the book is a reference to an old adage in the Black community: to achieve the same kind of professional success as a white person, a Black person must put in twice the effort. Double it again if she is a woman.
