Mildred Fay Jefferson, PhD: First Black Female Physician to Graduate from Harvard

Images via the Schlesinger Library

“I am at once a physician, a citizen and a woman.”

Welcome to our Lesser-Known Women Who Made Medical History series. During the following months, we’ll be taking a look at a few women who made an impact on the medical world.

Mildred Fay Jefferson, PhD, was the first African American woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School in 1951. Jefferson was known as a notable surgeon, speaker, and right-to-life activist.

Born in rural Pittsburg, Texas in 1926, Mildred Jefferson was the only child of Millard and Guthrie Jefferson. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Texas College in Tyler, Texas, and a master’s degree from Tufts before being accepted to Harvard Medical School.

In 1951, Dr. Jefferson became the first black woman to graduate from Harvard Medical School. She later became the first woman employed as a general surgeon at Boston University Medical Center and later became a professor of surgery at the university’s medical school. Dr. Jefferson was also the first woman to serve as a surgical intern at Boston City Hospital and the first woman to be elected to membership in the Boston Surgical Society.

In total, 28 American universities and colleges have awarded Dr. Jefferson with honorary degrees in recognition of her efforts in the field of medicine and her pursuit of social justice.

Harvard Medical School

Dr. Jefferson had a career-long interest in medical ethics, medical jurisprudence, and the connection between medicine and law, including their impact on society and public policy.

When preparing to move into surgery at Harvard Medical School in her second year, Dr. Jefferson began her clinical studies and was given basic operating and surgical technique in a dog lab. “That was one benefit of being in Harvard Medical School. We did have a very, very good program. And, Dr. Carl Walter, who headed that department, and Dr. David Hume, who was another one of my professors, who was the chief resident at that time, gave me the opportunity of putting in extra time. So, I had fairly advanced surgical technique by the time I even got to my internship.”

In her third and fourth years, Dr. Jefferson “took every course that I thought would be of value and I certainly took everything that I thought would make up for what would be expected shortcomings”. She also did an elective in urology “because most people would expect that a woman doctor would not be very strong in urology. Although, obviously women have urological problems as well. In most urological practice I think most urologists see more men than women in their practices. I took the course with Dr. J. Hartwell Harrison, one of my favorites, who was one of the great urologists of his time.”

Right-to-Life Activism

Dr. Jefferson’s involvement in the right-to-life movement began in the early 1970s and she went on to become one of its most outspoken and sought-after speakers. She was a founder of Massachusetts Citizens for Life and the National Right to Life Committee, serving as director of the former and three terms as president (from 1975 to 1978) of the latter. She also served on the boards of more than 30 groups opposing abortion (including the Value of Life Committee of Massachusetts and Black Americans for Life), euthanasia, human cloning, and embryonic stem cell research.

Later, in a 2003 profile in The American Feminist, an anti-abortion magazine, Dr. Jefferson said, “I am at once a physician, a citizen and a woman, and I am not willing to stand aside and allow this concept of expendable human lives to turn this great land of ours into just another exclusive reservation where only the perfect, the privileged and the planned have the right to live.”

Political Leadership

Dr. Jefferson was also active in the Republican Party and self-described as a “Lincoln Republican,” campaigning for anti-abortion candidates at the local, state, and national levels.

Dr. Jefferson’s commitment to the right-to-life movement influenced her decision to campaign for the US Senate. Although her name was placed in nomination at Republican conventions in 1982, 1990, and 1994, twice as a Republican for the US Senate and once for a House seat, she was largely unsuccessful. 

Despite these losses, Jefferson’s efforts continued to generate national and international acclaim.

Legacy

Dr. Jefferson passed away in Cambridge, Massachusetts on October 15, 2010 at the age of 84. She is still recognized by the many organizations she founded and served, and has been memorialized in the book Against All Odds: The Legacy of Students of African Descent at Harvard Medical School before Affirmative Action 1850-1968 by Nora Nercessian. 

She is remembered as a pioneer for black women at Harvard, especially since the majority of U.S. medical schools didn’t admit black women until almost a decade later.

This story was made possible by the archives at The Countway Library of Medicine.