Hispanic women in doctoral medical education in 19th century

Abstract

Background: Women's access to education, and more specifically, to medical studies has been a long and painful conquest for equality. In the 19th century, the number of women who actually went to Hispanic universities was small. Method: This is a descriptive historical and documentary study that reviews six doctoral dissertations retrieved from two databases, the Catálogo Completo and Tesis UCM, from the Complutense University of Madrid. Results: This study recovers and describes six pioneer doctoral theses defended in nineteenth century by Hispanic women, and it attempts to highlight the early presence of Hispanic women doctors in the field of medical doctoral education as professionals of the highest academic excellence. Specifically, it comments on five medical doctorates and one medical–pharmaceutical doctorate written by three Spanish women, as well as one Colombian, one Argentinean, and one Cuban woman. Conclusions: A key conclusion is that Hispanic women have produced six pioneering dissertations of singular importance with a multidisciplinary medical scope covering the topics, such as women education, hygiene, ophthalmology, gynecology, and pharmacology.

Keywords

• Doctoral medical education
• Doctoral dissertations
• 19th century
• Women doctors
• History of medical education