By Diane Batshaw Eisman, M.D. FAAP Doctor Eisman is in Family Practice in Aventura, Florida with her partner, Dr. Eugene Eisman, an internist/cardiologist
She was the daughter of an Omaha Tribal Chief and she never forgot what he told his daughters: “Do you always want to be simply called those Indians or do you want to go to school and be somebody in the world?”
And so, Susan La Flesche Picotte became a warrior on her path to become the first Native American physician.
She was born in 1865 in a tipi made of hide on the Omaha Reservation in Nebraska.
Susan’s defining moment occurred when she was only eight years old. One evening she sat by the bedside of a Native American woman who was in severe pain. Four messengers were sent to the white doctor from the Indian Agency. Each time, the messenger was told that the physician would be there quite soon. Before the sun rose, the woman died a painful death. The Agency doctor never appeared. An article by Carson Vaughan in the Smithsonian magazine on line: “The episode would haunt La Flesche for years to come, but it would steel her too. ‘It was only an Indian,’ she would later recall, ‘and it did not matter.’”
Susan was fortunate in having a father who encouraged education and believed the only chance for survival of the indigenous people was to be part of their own culture and also of the white culture.
Pursuing an education, she left her family at the age of fourteen to attend boarding school at the Elizabeth Institute for Young Ladies.
I can only imagine the bravery and determination it took for this teen-aged Indian woman to undertake the long train ride to New Jersey. After graduating from the Elizabeth Institute, she attended the Hampton Institute in Virginia, graduating as salutatorian.
But she never forgot the night that she had sat with the dying Indian woman denied medical care or compassion from a white physician. And Susan herself had lived among tuberculosis, cholera, measles, dysentery, trachoma and unsanitary conditions. Susan had to become a physician. This was her path.
Not an easy time for a woman to pursue a medical degree, let alone an indigenous woman.
The Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania was now open and dedicated to allowing women to earn the degree of Doctor of Medicine.
Of Course, Susan was accepted, but there were financial obstacles. A family friend came forward. The friend had contact with many women’s organizations and was able to secure some financial help for Susan. The Connecticut Indian Association granted more aid for her books, housing and supplies.
Susan was on her way. She graduated from medical school in1889 as the class valedictorian.
On returning to the reservation, she discovered that she was the only physician responsible for the care of more than twelve hundred people. Her territory covered over thirteen hundred square miles. Undaunted, Susan drove her horse-drawn buggy through oppressive heat and fierce snowstorms.
This Indian woman did not discriminate and also cared for the white people in nearby communities.
Susan La Flesche Picotte–a woman doctor when there were so few in America–when women who desired to become physicians were laughed at–the first Native American Indian physician.
(EDITOR’S NOTE FROM GALAHAD, THE SIBERIAN HUSKY WHO IS DOCTOR CURMUDGEON’S COUSIN: It is important to note the tenor of the times in which Susan lived. The Connecticut Indian Association that granted some of her financial aid stipulating that she must remain single while a medical student and for many years during her practice)
Dr. Curmudgeon suggests “Bitter Medicine”, Dr. Eugene Eisman’s story of his experiences–from the humorous to the intense—as a young army doctor serving in the Vietnam War.
Bitter Medicine by Eugene H. Eisman, M.D. –on Amazon
Doctor Curmudgeon® is Diane Batshaw Eisman, M.D., a physician-satirist. This column originally appeared on SERMO, the leading global social network for doctors.
SERMO www.sermo.com
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