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Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Essay

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Alejandra Bermudez
British Studies Term Paper
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
October 18, 2012

Alejandra Bermudez
Term Paper
October 18, 2012
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson
Elizabeth Garrett Anderson is often considered to be one of the most significant women in the history of medicine and society, her work is often considered to be a turning point in history. She refused to accept a domestic role and who fought to change the prevalent Victorian attitude that women and men could not be equal. She was the first female doctor in Britain, helped to establish the women's suffrage movement, and provided inspiration to her contemporaries and to those who followed in her footsteps. Over the years she has made a major impact not only in the …show more content…

Eventually, she enrolled as a nurse at Middlesex Hospital and attended lectures given to the male student doctors. This lasted only a few months, as the students complained about her attendance when she started to outshine them in lectures. However, they didn’t stop her, she continued to persevere. This is an example of the attitude barriers that Garrett Anderson had to overcome in order to achieve her goal, as women, again as stated before, were often held back due to the arrangement in society. Elizabeth worked extremely hard to work through all the negative aspect that came along with achieving this profession; it was her drive and ambition that sailed her through.
“She turned to private study and was taught anatomy at the London Hospital and general medicine under the tuition of professors at St Andrews University and Edinburgh University Extra-Mural School”(Brooks 13-15). None of this would have been possible without the continued financial and moral support of her father. In order to practice medicine, Garrett had to gain a qualifying diploma. London University, the Royal Colleges of Physicians and Surgeons and other examining bodies refused to allow her to sit their examinations, but she discovered that the Society of Apothecaries did not specifically ban women from taking their exams. “In 1865 Elizabeth went on to pass the

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