Emily Barringer

Emily Dunning Barringer
Born
Emily Dunning

September 27, 1876
DiedApril 8, 1961 (aged 84)
EducationCornell University Weill Medical College
OccupationPhysician-Surgeon
Years active1901 - c.1954
Medical career
FieldObstetrics and gynecology
InstitutionsGouverneur Hospital, Kingston Avenue Hospital, New York Infirmary for Women and Children

Emily Dunning Barringer (September 27, 1876[1] - April 8, 1961)[2] was the world's first female ambulance surgeon and the first woman to secure a surgical residency.[3]

Emily Dunning was born in Scarsdale, New York, to Edwin James Dunning and Frances Gore Lang. The well-to-do New York family fell on hard times when she was about ten years old, and her father left for Europe to try to recoup his fortune, leaving her mother with five children. When a well-meaning friend of Dunning's mother suggested that the girl might become a milliner's apprentice, her mother said "That settles the question. You are going to go to college." Dr. Mary Corinna Putnam Jacobi, a friend of the family, recommended Cornell University's medical preparatory course, and her uncle, Henry W. Sage, a founder of Cornell, agreed to pay her tuition. Other family friends also helped with expenses. Emily Dunning graduated in 1897 and decided to attend the College of Medicine of the New York Infirmary. During her sophomore year there, the college merged with the new Cornell University School of Medicine.[4]

Despite earning her medical degree in 1901 and earning the second-highest grade on the qualifying exam, Gouverneur Hospital in New York City refused to give her an internship. The next year she applied again, this time with the support from political and religious figures, and the hospital accepted her—the first woman ever accepted for post-graduate surgical training in service to a hospital.[3]

Barringer at her 1901 graduation
  1. ^ "Emily Dunning Barringer Biography". IMDB.com. Retrieved September 9, 2017.
  2. ^ "Emily Dunning Barringer". Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame. Archived from the original on 24 September 2018. Retrieved 26 March 2016.
  3. ^ a b [1] Archived 2018-09-24 at the Wayback Machine Connecticut Women's Hall of Fame Web site, Web page titled "Emily Dunning Barringer", accessed August 15, 2011
  4. ^ [2] National Library of Medicine Web site, Web page titled "Celebrating America's Women Physicians: Changing the Face of Medicine: Dr. Emily Dunning Barringer" accessed November 1, 2006