Hail the first female Pinoy doctors
Today, I pay tribute to the pioneer female physicians of the Philippines. But first let’s take a brief look at our history. During the Spanish Occupation of the Philippines, our women were not given the same rights as the men in acquiring education. The American Occupation, which started in 1898, gave greater freedom to our Filipino women particularly in the field of medicine and nursing. By 1903, the Americans even sent some Filipino women on government scholarships to the United States. In 1909, the Americans opened a co-ed nursing school, the Philippine Normal School. By 1916, the Americans granted suffrage to Filipino women. By 1930, Filipino women were accepted as students at the UP College of Medicine. It was only in 1932 when the women were able to gain entrance to the University of Sto. Tomas after the Pope gave permission to the Pontifical University to accept women students.
Dr. Honoria Acosta-Sison was the first Filipina to become a doctor. She, however, got her degree of Doctor of Medicine from a medical school in Pennsylvania. Unlike other Filipinas who followed tradition of just becoming housewives, she succeeded in acquiring a government scholarship in 1903, and was called pensionado. Her pre-med course was at the Drexel Institute and Brown Preparatory School while her medical studies were at the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. She proceeded with her residency training at the Maternity Hospital in the same institution.
UP Prof. Dr. Narciso Cordero, in his book To While Away the Hours, hailed Dr. Acosta-Sison as “the first Filipino woman physician, the first Filipino woman graduate of an American Medical School and the first Filipino woman obstetrician.”
The second Filipino woman doctor was Dr. Olivia Salamanca (1889-1913). At that time, the UP College of Medicine was still being built in the early 1900s. Like Dr. Acosta-Sison, Dr. Olivia Salamanca also was an alumna of the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. It is unfortunate that Dr. Salamanca lived a short life. The famous musician, Juan Felipe, most likely inspired by her, even wrote a musical piece entitled Olivia Salamanca. Dr. Salamanca was said to have fallen victim to the then dreadful disease tuberculosis and died at age 24. The park at the intersection of Taft Avenue and T. M. Kalaw Street was name as the Olivia Salamanca Park.
Dr. Maria Paz Mendoza-Guazon was the third female Filipino physician and the first woman to graduate from the first medical school in our country, the UP College of Medicine, in 1912. She is also the first woman graduate of the University of the Philippines. Dr. Mendoza-Guazon was outstanding in her researches in pathology and is likewise known for her philanthropic work. The then famous UP Guazon Hall was named after her.
Currently, in UP Manila College of Medicine, there is a Dr. Maria Paz Mendoza Memorial Medical Building, formerly called the Bureau of Mines building. It was named after Dr. Maria Paz Mendoza-Guazon, a philanthropist who, in 1965, donated a 1.75-hectare lot in Kahilum, Pandacan to the University of the Philippines. This lot was then sold to the National Housing Authority in 1988, and the sale proceeds was used for the remodeling of the said building.
Dr. Maria Paz Mendoza-Guazon was also the first Filipino physician to write about choriocarcinomas as seen from the autopsy table; the first to publish autopsy findings of bangungut; and the first Filipino woman to attain full professorship rank at the University of the Philippines in 1927.
