How Susan La Flesche Picotte Became America’s First Native Woman Doctor – Then Built The Hospital Her People Had Been Denied

Support came through reform networks that often held paternalistic views about Native people.

Organizations such as the Women’s National Indian Association believed education, Christianity, domesticity, and assimilation would solve what they saw as the “Indian problem.”

Susan accepted help from that world.

But she had her own goal.

She wanted to return with a skill no federal agent could easily dismiss.

She wanted to become the person who came when the doctor was called.

The Woman’s Medical College Had Been Created Because Other Schools Would Not Admit Women

In 1886, Susan La Flesche entered the Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

The institution existed because mainstream medicine had spent decades excluding women.

Founded in 1850, the college had created one of the few paths available to women who wanted full medical training.