Category Archives: Science > Medicine

In 1867, Rebecca J. Cole became the second African American woman to receive an M.D. degree in the United States.

Dr. Yvonnecris Veal was the fifth African American student to be enrolled in the Medical College of Virginia, at a time when only 14 of the 26 southern medical schools had accepted black students. She was the first woman to chair the Board of Trustees of the National Medical Association.

Dr. Roselyn Epps was the first African American local president of the American Medical Women’s Association, the first African American and first woman to become president of the Washington, D.C., chapter of the American Academy of Pediatrics, the first African American elected national president of the American Medical Women’s Association and the first African American woman president of the Medical Society of the District of Columbia.

Dr. Vivian Pinn was the first African American woman to chair an academic pathology department in the United States, at Howard University College of Medicine, and the first full-time director of the Office of Research on Women’s Health at the National Institutes of Health.